Who are Skipton Building Society?
Skipton Building Society has been helping people find a good place for their money since 1853. And today, we help over a million customers save for the future and secure their own homes. We’ve stood strong and stayed true to our heritage, we don’t have shareholders to answer to, just our customers. It’s why generations have trusted us for 170 years. When it comes to what we offer, we like to keep things simple and stick to what we’re good at. We’ve got a range of great value solutions – from everyday savings and mortgages, more complex investment advice, through to planning for retirement and beyond. Whatever your savings goals, we’re here to help you achieve them. We’ll help you to find a mortgage from our range to meet your needs, and giving everyone the right help is our financial advice mission.
Our vision is to build a better society. And we’re just as focused on our colleagues as we are our customers and creating the right environment for everyone to perform at their best is key. As well as excellent reward and recognition, our open and inclusive culture inspires our people to achieve more and encourages them to challenge the way we do things.
At Skipton everyone can make a difference and it’s our people who make it possible to consistently deliver a great customer experience.
What projects / schemes / initiatives to support women’s recruitment, retention and progression in STEM are Skipton Building Society involved in?
Our two development schemes: the Digital, Tech and Data Graduate Programme and our Tech Trainee Bootcamp, are schemes for people that have the potential and passion to work for an organisation who are wanting to try new things, make more use of tech, and make data driven decisions. We want our talent to be flexible and open minded, to explore and keep up to date with developments in technical and digital requirements. Therefore, you don’t need to come from a technical background to apply. This helps break down some of the barriers than women face when wanting to progress into a technical role. We know the value of soft and transferrable skills, that’s all you need to apply for these programmes. We can then support development in any hard skills required for the role.
We also have our Women in Technology group which meets bi-weekly to passionately work towards promoting the range of tech roles available to young people, empowering them to consider a future in STEM whilst also bringing attention to how closing the gender inequality gap in the technology industry is vital for a sustainable and successful future. Our aim is to reduce the gender imbalance in the technology industry by collaborating with local schools while students are at critical decision-filled points of their life.
In terms of females in leadership positions, we are a part of the Women in Finance charter and we are dedicated to achieving 45% female representation in senior leadership positions by 2023.
Our commitment to inclusion at Skipton Building Society and why we joined WISE.
We are committed to recruiting, retaining, and developing the best talent and understand the barriers faced by those from underrepresented communities. We want to actively drive change and have joined WISE to help continue our work in creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone feels that they belong.
Shagufta Sharif
Skipton Building Society’s Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Lead
