AtkinsRéalis named one of The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality 2024

The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality is the UK’s most highly profiled and well-established list of employers taking action and making gender equality part of their business strategy at all levels. AtkinsRéalis’ inclusion reflects its measures and actions to help remove gender inequalities, from record-high numbers of female apprentices and graduates to providing female employees with professional development opportunities, family-friendly policies and with a board-level commitment to support and strengthen an inclusive culture across the business.

Richard Robinson, UK & Ireland President, AtkinsRéalis, said: “Being recognised as a Top Employer for Gender Equality reflects our efforts to champion diversity and reinforce an inclusive working environment at every level of the business. We’ve looked at every aspect of our business, from how we recruit and retain talent to the policies and benefits we offer and the way we shine a light on issues affecting women in the workplace to the benefit of all our employees.

“This is a traditionally male-dominated sector and achieving gender equality needs a long-term commitment from across the industry. It’s also crucial to promoting innovation and delivering the best solutions for our clients: we need to attract, retain and promote top talent from all backgrounds to help engineer a better future for our planet and its people.”

In the last 12 months, AtkinsRéalis has increased female representation at every level of the business from apprenticeships to senior leadership, including record high numbers completing professional development schemes.

In 2022, women made up 19% of all UK university engineering graduates. Recognising the need to engage children earlier in their education to help encourage more into the sector, AtkinsRéalis is actively promoting STEM as a career choice for girls and young people of all backgrounds through initiatives such as its partnership with Governors for School, which reached 70,000 children in 2023-24.

AtkinsRéalis offers enhanced parental leave, including up to 4 weeks’ full pay for partners, and its industry-first Parental Buddy Scheme offers support before, during and after parental leave to support the transition for working parents.

Charlotte Woodworth, Gender Equality Director at Business in the Community, said: “Being named as a Times Top 50 employer for gender equality demonstrates AtkinsRéalis’s commitment to driving a more equitable, inclusive world. But while the employers who made the list are doing great work prioritising gender equality, there is still more work to do. From addressing pay disparities to better supporting those with caring responsibilities, many employees, women among them, still face barriers to finding employment and progressing in their careers. It is every employer’s responsibility to play their part in reducing and removing gender inequalities from the workplace, and research shows this isn’t just the right thing to do, it also makes business sense.”

Business in the Community (BITC) has been running The Times Top 50 for 14 years, as part of its Gender Equality work, which focuses on equality for all genders and those who do not identify as a gender. The organisations featured in the list have taken a proactive approach to stamp out inequalities in their workplaces by creating action plans to address disparities ranging from pay to progression.

Applicants were assessed on the work they do to remove gender inequalities in the workplace, including flexible working, family friendly policies, pay, reward, and progression at work.

About AtkinsRéalis

Created by the integration of long-standing organizations dating back to 1911, AtkinsRéalis is a world-leading professional services and project management company dedicated to engineering a better future for our planet and its people. We create sustainable solutions that connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. We deploy global capabilities locally to our clients and deliver unique end-to-end services across the whole life cycle of an asset including consulting, advisory & environmental services, intelligent networks & cybersecurity, design & engineering, procurement, project & construction management, operations & maintenance, decommissioning and capital. The breadth and depth of our capabilities are delivered to clients in strategic sectors such as Engineering Services, Nuclear and Capital. News and information are available at www.atkinsrealis.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Business in the Community

Business in the Community is the UK’s largest and most influential responsible business network dedicated to building a fairer and greener world together, supported by His Majesty the King for over 40 years. We inspire, engage and challenge purposeful leaders to take practical action to mobilise their collective strength as a force for good in society.