The gender pay gap across the UK financial sector remains wide, with women in insurance and financial services earning on average 78 pence for every pound earned by men in 2024, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of government data.
The gap has narrowed slightly - by 1.2 percentage points from the previous year - but remains significantly above the UK-wide average.
While investment banking shows the largest reported pay gaps, insurance firms are also grappling with long-standing disparities in pay and representation.
Gender pay gap disclosures from major insurers highlight how uneven representation at senior levels continues to influence outcomes. Despite a number of recruitment and promotion schemes, progress remains limited in terms of placing more women in top-paying roles, according to the report.
Several insurance firms have made efforts to address the imbalance, with some appointing women to high-profile leadership positions in recent years. Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva since 2020, is one of the most prominent figures in the sector. She has spoken publicly about the challenges facing women in financial services and has led Aviva’s DEI agenda, including setting targets for female representation in senior roles. Under her leadership, Aviva has reported a narrowing of its gender pay gap, though disparities remain.
At Lloyd’s of London, Lloyd's Chief Commercial Officer and CEO of Lloyd's Americas Dawn Miller holds a key executive position. She has played a role in shaping the market’s strategic priorities and represents a rare example of a woman in a senior commercial leadership role within the specialty insurance and reinsurance space. Meanwhile, Charlotte Jones, CFO at Aviva, is among the few women holding top financial roles at major UK insurers.
These appointments signal progress, but sector-wide figures suggest such examples remain the exception. According to the latest Women in Finance Charter review, published on Thursday, women now hold 36% of senior roles across financial services, up from just over 25% a decade ago. However, the year-on-year increase was just one percentage point, and insurance remains one of the sectors where the pace of change is slower at executive and board levels.
Despite continued participation in initiatives like the Women in Finance Charter, some firms failed to meet their internal diversity targets in 2024. Around 20 financial services companies, including insurers, cited hiring freezes and organisational restructuring as key reasons.
The broader context is also changing. A growing political backlash against DEI programmes, particularly in the US, has prompted some firms to soften the language used around their inclusion strategies, the report said.
According to Yasmine Chinwala, partner at the think tank New Financial, terms such as “targets” are increasingly being replaced with “goals” or “ambitions”, particularly among firms seeking to avoid political scrutiny.
“It may be that language changes again, and that strategy changes will influence how targets are being communicated or whether companies have targets at all,” Chinwala said.
The impact of political developments is being felt in the UK as well. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, recently suggested that the lack of women in senior roles is a result of them being less willing than men to prioritise work over family life. Similar comments have been made by critics of DEI in the US, including activist Robby Starbuck, who has argued that women should make “different career choices” to improve pay outcomes.
Industry advocates point to examples of women already in leadership as evidence that change is possible but caution that more needs to be done.
“For many years, the justification has been that we don't have enough women at the top, but banks are doing a brilliant job of getting women in at graduate level and entry level, moving through into that middle rank,” said Pavita Cooper, UK chair of the 30% Club. “Women are not progressing from there to C-suite and C-suite minus one.”
At the current rate, women in senior finance roles, including in insurance, are not expected to reach pay parity until 2038, according to projections from New Financial.
“We've got uncertainty from lots of different places—political, the volatility, the DEI backlash,” said Jenny Barrow, senior diversity and inclusion adviser at New Financial. “2025 is going to be a big year and it's certainly going to be a tough one for many.”
While female executives such as Blanc, Miller and Jones are helping to shape the industry’s leadership landscape, the wider challenge remains structural. Insurance firms continue to face questions about how to retain and promote women into senior decision-making roles - and whether the momentum built in recent years can withstand growing external pressure.
