Starling has always been committed to being an inclusive workplace, one that strongly believes that what you know is more important than your gender, race, religion or anything else. That’s why in 2017 we signed the Women in Finance Charter.

As a digital bank, we operate at the axis of two traditionally male-dominated professions, banking and technology. We are determined, as we scale up, to advance and celebrate the successes of women at Starling and in fintech more generally.

What is the Women in Finance Charter?

The charter is a voluntary commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to make finance a more gender balanced industry. As a signatory, Starling is committed to supporting the progression of women into senior roles and to reporting on our progress.

Our progress so far

When we signed up to the charter in 2017, we reported that 27% of our staff in senior management roles were women and we set ourselves a target to increase this to 30% by 2021. In 2018 we surpassed our target of 30% and so we increased it to 40%. We are pleased to announce that we are still exceeding our goal of 40% and we are continuing to improve each year.

Women make up 42% of our workforce of 1,090 as of December 2020.

Women make up 46% of our Executive Team, 44% of our senior managers and 40% of our Board.*

Our target is:

Since our last charter update we have had a year of growth and transformation. We have now opened two million accounts, hold more than £4.5 billion in deposits and we hit break even in October. We were also able to support small and medium-sized enterprises through the pandemic as we started lending through the government-backed CBLIS and BBLS loan schemes, lending more than £1.5 billion to small businesses.

Without our inclusive environment our continued growth wouldn’t be possible. So as we enter into a new year we will continue to exceed our target and remain committed to doing our best to ensure that finance becomes a more gender balanced industry.

*Our internal definition for senior management representation includes our executive committee, any direct reports to the exco and anyone outside of operations with significant line management responsibility (8 direct reports or more).