At Arriva we are committed to delivering essential passenger transport services that connect communities, friends, and families, and help people access jobs and vital services. We take great pride in our diverse workforce, who work hard every day to enable people to get where they want to be, on time and in comfort.
Gianfranco Sgro
Arriva Group
At Arriva we are committed to delivering essential passenger transport services that connect communities, friends, and families, and help people access jobs and vital services. We take great pride in our diverse workforce, who work hard every day to enable people to get where they want to be, on time and in comfort.
As one of Europe’s leading passenger transport companies, we care passionately about connecting people and communities to each other, to their places of work, to education and to leisure activities. I believe our success is driven by having a workforce that represents and understands the needs of the communities we serve. I’m proud of our approach to inclusion and to lead an organisation that values all employees regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.
In the UK, the average pay gap can vary across our businesses due to their differing size and operational scale. However, overall, when looking at pay averages, we can see that in 2025 our figures are weighted slightly in favour of males, with mean average earnings 1.2% more than females per hour when looking at averages across our 19 eligible UK businesses. This compares with a gap of 2.3% in favour of males in 2024.
Several factors influence these numbers: the fluctuations in the ratio of males to females year-on-year in different parts of the workforce, better business performance impacting bonus pay, and variations in drivers’ hours worked.
We are continually working towards equalising pay through various diversity initiatives. Indeed, we have continued to make good progress on inclusion over the last year. 44% of all new joiners in our leadership population were women and the female leadership population has remained stable overall at 38%. On our leadership acceleration programme, 53% of participants are women.
In our driver population, 10% of colleagues are women. While we have maintained our focus on attracting and hiring women into driver roles, adding 267 new women drivers to our UK operations. We are committed to increasing female representation in these key roles, demonstrating good progress against the targets set out in our inclusion strategy.
Male employees continue to outnumber female employees in most of our operating businesses and while this is seen across the whole transport sector, we recognise that improving our gender balance presents an opportunity as we look to attract new, talented individuals to our industry.
In 2025, we have made good progress with a number of initiatives specifically designed to grow gender diversity at Arriva.
- Our UK-wide Better Balance network continues to grow and offers networking and development opportunities specifically for female colleagues.
- We ensure there is gender balance when making selections for our Talent Development Programmes.
- When recruiting for senior roles within our business, we ensure there are gender balanced shortlists. We use gender neutral language in our advertising and look for ways to target female talent by promoting flexible working opportunities.
- We have trialled Diversity Jobs Boards that are targeted to specific audiences to enhance and support the improvement of the number of females within Arriva, for example: the ‘Jobs4Women’ specific board.
- Our local Inclusion Networks have a full calendar of events planned throughout the year, focussed on enhancing diversity across Arriva.
- We continue to undertake school visits to promote apprenticeships, and we have co-hosted webinars for Women in Engineering.
- We have integrated the ‘I can be me’ programme into various Development initiatives to help develop career confidence of female colleagues.
- We work with an external reward expert to benchmark Arriva’s pay against the wider industry and to ensure we remain competitive.
Across Europe we have a vision to help shape a future where passenger transport is the best choice and achieving that vision starts with our people. We know that organisations with greater gender balance not only perform better but also help to create more inclusive work environments. It is a priority for me to have a diverse, talented, and motivated workforce so that we can create a strong future together.
Gianfranco Sgro
Chief Executive Officer
