Our people

Three white shirts embroidered with the Skipton Logo. The Skipton Logo is a blue castle silhouette with the words "Est. 1853" underneath

Together as one

We want to build a sustainable, accessible Society for our customers, our colleagues, and the wider community.

The success of Skipton Building Society is down to the quality, dedication and enthusiasm of our colleagues. We are committed to fostering an engaged, diverse, valued, and well-trained workforce.

That’s why we encourage creating a working culture where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive, to belong and to enjoy their role. 

Diversity and Inclusion

Encouraging diversity and inclusion is an important part of our culture. We appreciate the value our colleagues' unique differences can bring. Our hope is to attract, develop and retain talented people who will help us build a better Society, one that’s well placed to help our customers today and in the future.

Awareness

We’re working towards building a more diverse and inclusive Society for our colleagues and customers. A workplace where everyone feels like they belong and can be themselves is crucial and we’re focused on embedding conscious inclusion across all our touchpoints and in everything we do.

To help in our efforts, we have a number of employee diversity and inclusion network groups. Each supported by senior leaders, these groups provide training and support to allow our colleagues to join discussions, engage – and then thrive and succeed within the society.

A Skipton employee at Leeds Pride Festival. Her cheeks are painted with rainbows.

Women in finance

When we signed the Women in Finance Charter, we agreed to a number of pledges to measure ourselves against over time, to demonstrate our commitment to gender equality and support our belief that diversity of thought results in a better Society for our customers.

You can find out more about our pledges and progress on our Women in Finance page, or, if you would like to take a look, you can download our 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report [PDF].

Women in finance
A woman smiling and writing in a notebook. In the foreground a man is sat facing her

Flexible working

Flexible working was a key part of working at Skipton even before the pandemic, with many colleagues able to adopt flexible working patterns. 

Since the pandemic, the Society is more flexible than ever, with colleagues having the option to work from home, as well as being able to connect face-to-face with their colleagues to create, collaborate and socialise together. 

Even our customer-facing colleagues, such as those working in our branches, can work much more flexibly, helping customers in different ways, such as by telephone or through video appointments.

A man working on a laptop while taking care of his young child. In the background is a woman

Accessibility

We’re working to improve awareness and understanding of both the mental and physical disabilities faced by our colleagues. We’ve joined the government’s ‘Disability Confident’ scheme and we are also working with AccessAble, an organisation that provides Accessibility Guides on thousands of venues across the UK.

Find out more about Accessibility
A woman in a wheelchair using a phone with headphones

Wellbeing

Healthy body and mind

We train our people leaders in mental health awareness, ensuring they know how to support their team when they need it most. We also have a team of over 50 mental health first aiders who offer confidential listening and signpost anyone in need of further support to the right place.

On top of this, we often run financial wellbeing sessions for our colleagues, and we also provide colleagues with three volunteer days, many of which are used to support local charities and team fundraising events.

Two men walking a dog in the woods

Accreditations and Commitments

We’re really proud to have been awarded accreditations for our commitment to our people and the culture we endorse. We're seen as having ‘World Class’ levels of employee engagement by Best Companies, voted as the third best big company to work for.

We’re delighted to be a member of WISE, an organisation supporting businesses to achieve gender parity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) sectors.

A young woman in nature

Developing our people

We’re very passionate about learning and development. Wherever our colleagues are in the business, whatever stage they’re at in their career, we provide frequent opportunities to grow knowledge, build experience, hone skills, and develop through coaching, mentoring and more. 

Learning happens on the job, at in-person training sessions and online. Colleagues can be driven by their ambition for their own career or, equally, by the needs of the organisation or team. 

There is always room for personal growth and learning, which can lead to new experiences, roles and qualifications. And rest assured, Skipton Building Society will continue to support our colleagues wherever and however it can.

A young woman smiling and lying on the floor using a tablet

Supporting and developing leaders

Through our work with the Building Societies Association, 12 of our senior leaders have studied for a master's degree in strategic leadership at Loughborough University.

A family hiking. There are two adult men and two young children