United. Excellence. Bravery. Passion. Tenacity.

Diversity & Inclusion

At Walkinshaw Group, we actively promote, celebrate, and leverage the diversity of people, perspectives, and experiences to enhance our business performance.

Prioritising diversity and inclusion aligns with our business strategy and our values – United, Excellence, Bravery, Passion and Tenacity.

What is the gender pay gap?

The Gender Pay Gap (GPG) is the difference in average earnings between women and men in the workforce. It is not to be confused with women and men being paid the same for the same, or comparable, job – this is equal pay.

A GPG does not mean that there are equal pay issues, our analysis indicates that differences stem from the distribution of women within the workforce.

We firmly advocate for the disclosure of the employer GPG as a crucial step toward addressing and closing the gender pay disparity.

Key findings

Walkinshaw Group is a leading design, engineering and manufacturing company with significant operations in the automotive industry, which is traditionally very heavily male dominated.

Our data therefore returns a low percentage of female employees (approximately 16% of the workforce versus 28% in the comparison industry workforce) which makes it harder to make direct comparisons of pay between genders. We’ve had a challenging year for recruitment such that gender is not a consideration in who is recruited but rather we focus on worker attributes, skills and experience. Our recent experience is that more men than women are applying for our roles.

Our male to female ratio is still overwhelmingly male however our overall female workforce has doubled year on year (16% in 2022-23 versus 8% in 2021-22) reflecting success in our efforts to recruit more females into the business. Our data also shows that we now have more females in positions of higher management which sees their mean (average) pay rate increase. We will continue our efforts to improve female participation in the coming years with a key focus on female participation in below manager roles.


During the 2022-23 WGEA Gender Equality compliance reporting, Walkinshaw Group reported:

  • Mean Pay Gap: An average total remuneration GPG of 27.2% vs the national average of 21.7% and the Industry Comparison Group (ICG) GPG of 13.2%.
  • Median Pay Gap: A median total remuneration GPG of 19.3% vs the ICG GPG of 14.5%.

Drivers of employer gender pay gap

Our analysis of the GPG data has identified the following range of factors contributing to the gap:

  • Senior roles tend to be paid more, so when there is a gender imbalance in senior roles, this can drive GPG. In 2022-23, women comprise 12% of Managers or above (improving from 9% in 2021-22) compared with 25% in our ICG. Of the non-manager group, women comprise 15% (improving from 8% in 2021-22) compared with 28% in our ICG. Pleasingly, our GPG for managers was 6.5% (improving from 47.8% in 2021-22 and 22% in 2020-21) and better than the average for the ICG (9.6% in 2022-23).

  • A disproportionate concentration of men in the upper quartiles and/or women in the lower quartiles can drive a positive GPG. At Walkinshaw Group, women represent 12% of the upper quartile, 8% of the upper middle quartile and 35% of the lower quartile. The significantly higher proportion of men in the upper quartiles is a key contributor in the GPG.

  • Part-time and casual roles are often lower paid. An imbalance in the composition of employees in these roles can be a significant driver of the GPG. The part-time workforce of our organisation is 100% women (across 2 roles). This has a consequent impact of decreasing the average total remuneration of women and creating a gender pay gap in favour of men.

Actions to help close the gap


Walkinshaw Group is committed to preventing gender pay gaps. Several strategies and initiatives have been or will be implemented, including:

  • Equal Opportunities: We provide equal opportunities for career growth, professional development, and promotions, based solely on merit and qualifications, free from gender bias.

  • Education and Training: We will offer ongoing training and education programs to raise awareness of unconscious bias and gender biases, empowering our employees to recognise and address these issues within our workplace. Further, we will continue to encourage career development across genders and seniority levels of the organisation through in-house and external training and development.

  • Supportive Policies: Continuously reviewing and refining our policies and procedures to ensure they promote fairness and equity in all aspects of recruitment and employment.

  • Accountability and Measurement: Implementing measurable goals and holding ourselves accountable by regularly evaluating our progress towards closing any gender pay gap.

This commitment is an ongoing journey, and we acknowledge that effort and collaboration are essential for making meaningful change and sustaining progress.

We appreciate the valuable insights provided by the WGEA reporting process and it strengthens our resolve to continuously improve in this area, not only by working to reduce the pay gap but also through improving the attraction, recruitment, retention, and development of our workforce.

We recognise the need to improve our gender balance at all levels in the company and this is a focus area for the coming years. It will take time to achieve but so far, we are showing progression and improvement in this area.

As we grow, we understand that we must have the most talented employees with diverse backgrounds, cultures, perspectives, and experiences to support our innovation and creativity.