Chief Executive Foreward

Margherita Della Valle

At Vodafone, we want all our people to grow and thrive in their careers, and inclusion and diversity is a key priority for us. Our global goal is for women to hold 40% of management and leadership positions by 2030 with current representation of 32.5%.

In the United Kingdom, women make up 37.1% of our workforce of approximately 13,500 people. Our mean gender pay gap was calculated to be 10.4% this year (a slight increase from 9.6% in 2021 but lower than 12.0% in 2020). Our median gender pay gap was calculated to be 13.2% (a slight increase from our figures for 2021 of 12.4% but lower than 2020 at 16.8%). The slight increase in the gaps year on year reflects a higher proportion of women in our lowest paid roles compared to the prior year. Encouragingly, the proportion of women in the highest paid roles continues to increase year-on-year.

While we are making progress, there is more to do. Female employees earn less per hour than male employees, according to both the mean and median gender pay gap metrics. This is primarily due to comparatively higher levels of male representation in the most senior or specialist positions, and thus higher-paying roles.

In a post-pandemic world, it’s more important than ever that our global and country policies promote equity and inclusion within Vodafone, especially because women, and particularly women of colour and those with disabilities, have been disproportionately negatively impacted by the pandemic’s economic and social consequences.

Vodafone continues to offer policies to support all our employees. These include:

  • Our global Parental Leave policy
  • Our ReConnect Returner programme
  • Our global Domestic Violence policy
  • Our hybrid working policy supporting blended working opportunities
  • Our menopause support and hormonal life stages strategy
  • Our Grow programme, launched this year, gives employees greater opportunities for self-directed learning, skills assessment, and career development
  • We also continue to build a greater understanding throughout the company and with our line managers regarding mental health
  • We have developed our REACH equality action plan to support Black and Asian colleagues, particularly women, to thrive
  • We have addressed local priorities in our markets such as baby loss and IVF

I am pleased that Vodafone has been recognised once again by the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index as a leader in creating equity for women.

We are proud of the policies that we have put in place to support our employees. We remain committed to addressing female representation at senior levels and the gender pay gap.