Inclusion in EMEA

Championing inclusion across EMEA

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

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:

Investing in our current and future talent is a key priority at Macquarie. Embedding inclusion enhances our approach to recruiting, helps mitigate bias and supports attracting talent from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences.

We are also investing in our future talent through providing a range of Early Careers programmes, including the Rise to It with Macquarie Programme, which provides full university maintenance and tuition fees, as well as offering hands-on work experience to Year 12 students from low socio-economic backgrounds and under-represented communities.

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

  • 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.
  • One-to-one parental leave coaching before, during and after taking time off from work. This 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.
  • 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.
  • All our UK employees have emergency access to childcare support, nurseries, childminders, holiday clubs and elder-care specialists when required.
  • 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 empower our people to work together flexibly in a way that balances the needs of our clients and each other:

  • Most of our people balance time spent working in the office and remotely. Everyone is empowered to work together flexibly in a way that works for their team and role. In some roles, our people are required to be in the office every day.

The wellbeing of our people is a priority, and we provide a comprehensive range of initiatives and benefits designed to equip them with the tools and resources they need to support their health and wellbeing:

  • We provide one wellbeing day and two days of volunteering leave for all staff annually, in addition to their annual leave allowance.
  • We offer access to tailored support and advice for a range of healthcare areas including menopause, fertility, pregnancy, 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 extra support. Our employees can speak with Wellbeing Ambassadors - colleagues who understand because they have been there.
  • We are committed to reducing the stigma around mental health and train Mental Health First Aiders that our employees can speak with confidentially.

Our successes

Our employee-led network groups actively nominate individuals for recognition who demonstrate exceptional commitment to fostering an inclusive culture, resulting in multiple wins at the Rising Stars Awards 2026 and 2025, and finalist placements for the Black British Business Awards 2025.

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.

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.

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

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

We signed the UK Women in Finance Charter as part of our ongoing commitment to continually improve all areas of workforce diversity, understanding that it is fundamental to everything we do as a business. Our culture strengthens our decision making, enables us to identify opportunities, and delivers value for our people, clients, shareholders and communities.

In January 2022, we achieved our UK Women in Finance Charter Target of 25 per cent of women in director roles 18 months ahead of our 2023 schedule.

Our current target is 35 per cent of women in director roles by 2031. As of 31 May 2026, the representation of women in director roles is 30.9 per cent, up from 22.8 per cent in 2019 when we first signed the Charter.

Our EMEA CEO, Rachel Palmer, is the accountable executive to the HM Treasury, but all of our leaders are accountable for, and committed to, improving our gender balance.

Gender pay gap reports

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.

We are committed to achieving more balanced gender representation at all levels across our organisation and are proud of our progress, but there is more we can do.

Our focus continues to be on strengthening the internal and external pipeline of women and people from under-represented 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.