• Santander ranked in the Top 20 in the index for UK employers who have taken the most action to improve social mobility in the workplace
Santander UK has today been named as one of the Top 75 employers in the Social Mobility Employer Index 2021, demonstrating its commitment to social mobility.
Santander has been ranked 18th in the latest Index which assesses and ranks UK employers on the actions they take to ensure they are open to talent from all social backgrounds.
The Index was created by the Social Mobility Foundation in 2017 and evaluates UK employers across seven key areas which include their work with young people, routes into the company, how they attract staff, recruitment and selection, data collection, progression of staff, and experienced hires and advocacy.
Santander was specifically commended by the Social Mobility Foundation for the measures taken to improve social mobility including:
• offering higher level apprenticeships giving a genuine route into the organisation that is comparable with those of university graduates, and which allows for ongoing career progression;
• ensuring good outreach at schools, with above average levels of free school meals and without existing relationships with employees, through educational Wise workshops by colleagues across the UK;
• also ensuring paid-work experience opportunities and internships reach those from a lower socio-economic background, giving genuine opportunities to consider a career within financial services;
• making significant improvement in social mobility data to better support colleagues;
• removing candidates’ grades and university attended from most stages of the recruitment process;
• maintaining strong partnerships with 85 University Partners, reaching and supporting students from lower socio-economic backgrounds; and
• demonstrating good advocacy with an Executive Committee sponsor driving change as well as a Social Mobility Network which helps support a substantial number of colleagues.
John Collins, Santander’s Social Mobility Executive Committee Sponsor said: “It’s fantastic to receive this recognition for the action we’ve taken to support social mobility as part of our commitment to creating a culture where everyone feels they belong and can succeed, irrespective of their social-economic background. We continue to work with others within the industry, including as part of the City of London socio-economic taskforce, to improve socio-economic diversity and deliver real change.”
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Notes to Editors
The Social Mobility Employer Index was launched in 2017 and has grown to become the leading authority on employer-led social mobility. It assesses and ranks UK employers on the actions they take to ensure they are open to talent from all social backgrounds. The Social Mobility Employer Index is comprised of two elements: questions directed at employers, and an employee survey which was introduced in 2018. Employers are evaluated across seven areas: their work with young people, routes into the employer, the attraction of staff, recruitment and selection, data collection, progression of staff and experienced hires and advocacy. The employee survey adds qualitative insights and contextualises the data provided in the employer submissions. Employers are then benchmarked against one another based on the results. The data and insights from this process are published in an annual Key Findings Report which features a ranking of the 75 top-performing employers on social mobility that year.
The Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) is a charity that aims to make practical improvements in social mobility for young people from low-income backgrounds through its Aspiring Professional Programme, its Social Mobility Employer Index, and its advocacy and campaigning arm, the Department for Opportunities (DO). Currently taking on a new cohort of over 2,000 young people every year, the SMF has offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle and runs programmes for young people from the Isle of Wight to the Western Isles of Scotland across 11 career sectors (Accountancy, Architecture, Banking & Finance, Biology & Chemistry, Business, Engineering & Physics, Law, Media & Communications, Medicine, Politics, and Digital).
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. At 30 June 2021, the bank had around 20,900 employees and serves around 14 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in the Europe, North America and South America regions, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Its purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising over €120 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of the first half of 2021, Banco Santander had €1.1 trillion in total funds, 150 million customers, of which 24.2 million are loyal and 45.3 million are digital, 10,000 branches and 190,000 employees.
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