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Diversity, equity and inclusion

Advancing gender balance

Our colleagues share their experiences of gender equity at Macquarie.

International Women's Day 2025

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the tremendous achievements of women and girls around the world and consider how we accelerate the further change needed to build a future where everyone is empowered to deliver to their full potential. ​

This year we celebrated in different ways across our global offices, enabling our people to join the conversation on how to attract, retain and support women to succeed in their careers. Discussions were supported by our gender Employee Network Groups which connect our people from across the businesses in each region to support them in collaborating and learning from each other.

Our CEO Shemara Wikramanayake was joined by guest speakers Liz Ellis, Chair of Netball Australia and media commentator, Stephanie Graham, Managing Director of Construction at Lendlease, and Fiona Balfour AM, a professional non-executive director across the IT/digital, aviation and logistics sectors, to discuss the ways we can come together to support women to succeed and make an impact.  

Championing inclusion and embracing diversity

We recognise that the diversity of our people is one of our greatest strengths. An inclusive workplace enables us to embrace diversity to deliver more innovative and sustainable solutions for our people, clients, shareholders and communities.​

Everyone at Macquarie is responsible for ensuring our culture is inclusive. Our EMEA Management Committee works closely with the EMEA People and Culture team and our operating groups to enact in the region and drive change.

We encourage our people to self-identify across a broad range of diversity dimensions including cultural and racial diversity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and parenting and caring roles. This data enables internal and external benchmarking, as well as measurement of progress and equity in our people processes. 

Driving more balanced gender representation

We are committed to achieving more balanced gender representation at all levels across our organisation and are proud of our progress. We employ more women and gender diverse people than ever before, but there is always more we can do.

Our focus continues to be on strengthening the internal and external pipeline of women and people from under-connected groups at all levels of our organisation and enhancing our recruitment and talent practices to help facilitate this.

We have a range of initiatives to drive more balanced gender representation and support women to succeed. By embedding inclusion into our culture and our people processes, from recruitment to development to progression, we hope to enable and empower everyone to thrive.

We continue to invest in and support our people to shape their own unique career paths. We provide a wide variety of role and business-specific training, and have multiple development offerings including:

  • Sponsorship and Development Programmes: that support talented employees by matching them with senior leaders to support their development.
  • Development and mobility: employees are encouraged to explore opportunities to work across business areas and in different geographies.
  • Buddy Programme: pairing new joiners with a buddy from their team and offering an additional buddy, chosen by the employee, to help give people a sense of belonging from the very beginning.
  • People Manager Essentials: supporting our people managers to actively create inclusive environments where everyone can thrive.
  • Executive and Director Leadership Programmes: supporting our director population globally to enhance their sense of accountability for creating an inclusive culture, with increased motivation and skill in empowering, developing, retaining, and leading diverse people and teams.
  • We also provide a range of group specific development programmes to equip employees to succeed in their chosen field.

Investing in our current and future talent is a key priority at Macquarie. We are continuously enhancing our approach to recruiting, to remove bias and focus on casting a wide net, accessing the widest talent pool possible, which in turn, builds a more diverse workforce.

We also provide a range of Early Careers Programmes:

  • Junior Associate Programme: provides careers access to university students from under-represented communities and low socio-economic backgrounds with valuable work experience at Macquarie, two days per week whilst they complete their degree. It is delivered in conjunction with several Macquarie Group Foundation partners.
  • Rise to It with Macquarie Programme: provides full university maintenance and tuition fees, as well as offering hands-on work experience at Macquarie, to Year 12 students from low socio-economic backgrounds and under-represented communities.
  • Women in Business Series: aims to attract more women to apply for roles in Macquarie.  
  • Intern and Graduate Mentoring Programmes: provide additional support and tools to help our graduate and intern hires succeed in their career with us.

We are committed to helping our employees manage their care responsibilities and provide a range of benefits and support for parents and carers.

  • We believe in supporting all parents, so we offer up to six months of paid leave, regardless of gender. Secondary Carer Leave is available to all parents with secondary childcare responsibility for a new child, including through adoption.
  • We offer one-to-one parental leave coaching that is provided before, during and after taking time off from work. This coaching is designed to support both new and existing working parents transition from, and back to, their professional lives.
  • Coaching is also provided to managers of those going on leave to ensure they are equipped to provide support.
  • We offer a phased return to support transitions back to work after Primary carer leave, with up to 12 paid transition days in the first 12 weeks of returning to work.
  • We provide all our employees with emergency access to childcare support, nurseries, childminders, holiday clubs and elder-care specialists when required (UK specific).
  • We offer paid fertility leave for all UK employees or their partners undergoing fertility treatment, ensuring they have the necessary time off to support them on this journey. 
  • We are committed to hybrid working for the long term. That means most of our people balance time spent working in the office and remotely.  There are some roles that do require our people to be in the office every day. Everyone is empowered to work together flexibly in a way that works for their team, also taking advantage of the benefits of coming together in person.
  • The wellbeing of our people is a priority, and we provide a comprehensive range of initiatives and benefits, designed to equip our people with the tools and resources they need to own their health and wellbeing. 
  • We provide one wellbeing day and two days of volunteering leave for all staff annually – in addition to traditional annual leave.
  • We offer access to tailored support and advice for important healthcare areas including menopause, fertility, pregnancy and early parenthood, men’s health and women’s health.
  • We offer access to neurodiversity assessments and support services for all our UK-based employees and their eligible family members (aged 7 and over) through our healthcare provider.
  • We understand that we all have lives outside of work. Often, we can balance the two, but every now and again something tips the balance, and we need a bit of extra support. Our Wellbeing Ambassadors are colleagues to talk with - they are someone who understands because they have been there.

Our successes

Shortlisted as a Top 10 Business of the Year at the 2025 Metro Pride Awards.

Awarded the title of 2024 Exemplary Employer by Investing in Ethnicity.

Recognised as a Top 10 Employer at the Investing in Ethnicity Awards 2023.

Our Cultural, Ethnicity, Race & Faith Employee Network group was awarded Highly Commended Network Group at the European Diversity Awards 2024.

Our Gender Equity and Neurodiversity networks were also shortlisted for the European Diversity Awards 2024.

Recognised as a Top 10 Employer at the European Diversity Awards 2023.

Listed in the Top 50 Glassdoor Best Places to Work 2024 in the UK

In January 2022, we achieved our UK Women in Finance Charter Target of 25 percent women in director roles 18 months ahead of our 2023 schedule. We then set ourselves an ambitious target of 35 percent women in director roles by August 2026. As of 31 August 2024, the representation of women in director roles is 29.4% vs. 22.8% in 2019 when we first signed the Charter.

Whilst market factors this past financial year have challenged our efforts, we remain committed to enabling everyone to be included and to reach their full potential.

Our Women In Tech network was awarded the Best Mentorship Programme at the UK Women in Tech Employer Awards 2022.

Number 1 on the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusive employers and best employer for LGBT+ people: Stonewall Awards 2022.

Our LGBTQ+ network Pride was awarded Highly Commended Network Group in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index 2022. 

Recognised as a Top 10 Employer by the British LGBT Awards 2022.

UK Gender Pay Gap Report

Pay gaps are not the same as unequal pay. Equal pay considers work of equal value. A gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of all men and women across an entity or organisation. Our gender pay gap is driven by not having enough women in senior roles, which we are working hard to address through various initiatives and actions.


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