An introduction from our Chief People Officer
“At Zenith, we’re proud to be building a culture with inclusion everywhere – every team, every level, everywhere. However, to nurture an inclusive culture, we have to drive a change in our diversity, otherwise we’re not changing the makeup of the colleague population and representing the customers and communities that we serve, which is our goal.
Our People Promise outlines how we’ll continue to invest in our colleagues and be the first choice in the industry for colleagues to develop their careers to ensure we go the extra mile for both our customers and colleagues.
Our award-winning inclusion programme has been a phenomenal journey over the last few years, with plenty of progress made, which you can learn more about below.
Being able to track our progress in this area is key and while gender pay gap reporting is imperative, at Zenith we also have our census, which more than 90% of our colleagues have taken part in, sharing their data with us so we can proactively measure how we’re doing against our diversity and inclusion commitments and target our activity to the areas that will have the most impact. This is a strong level of engagement and demonstrates our colleagues support and commitment to make our workplace more reflective of the world we live and work in.”
The shape of our workforce
1,452
colleagues
39.4%
female colleagues
(up 1.4% from 2024)
35%
of our senior leadership are women
(up 1% from 2024)
What is Gender Pay Gap reporting?
Gender pay gap legislation requires legal entities with more than 250 colleagues to publish their pay gap between males and females.
Zenith Group includes several employing legal entities. For the 2025 gender pay reporting period, two entities exceed the 250 employee threshold and therefore require statutory reporting – Zenith Vehicle Contracts Limited and Contract Vehicles Ltd (CVL).
To support clarity and transparency, we have also provided a voluntary aggregated figure for the entire Zenith Group. This aligns with the spirit of the Gender Pay Gap reporting legislation, meets our reporting obligations and helps us to focus on reducing the pay gap across the whole group, not just within the entities reported.
It is important to note that the Gender Pay Gap differs from equal pay.
Equal pay ensures employees performing the same or similar work receive the same pay. A gender pay gap can still exist even where equal pay is in place, typically due to differences in workforce composition.
Zenith’s 2025 Gender Pay Gap
How are we doing?
Metric highlights:
- 1.5% increase in female representation at group level
- 2.4% increase in female representation in our upper quartile
- 41% of our Head of population are female an increase of 3% YOY
- 51% of promotions were female
- Increased female representation in our Commercial division by 2% (27%) following a 3% increase the year prior
(Zenith Group)
This year our gender pay gap has remained broadly static.
- Mean ↓ 0.61%
- Median ↑ 0.23%
Whilst we have seen progress in our average (mean) pay gap this continues to be driven by the higher proportion of men in senior roles: 66% of our upper‑level roles are held by men and 34% by women creating a 13.5% difference in representation between the lowest and highest pay quartiles (see ‘Mean and median pay gaps 2025’ table). We are seeing positive movement, with female representation increasing across all quartiles, including a 2.4% increase in the upper quartile.
Our mobile service unit (MSU) population continues to be male-dominated area of the market. As MSUs account for over 10% of our population if we remove this group from the data the median halves to 9%.
Our first 10% of entry roles have an even 50/50 split of male vs female which is good news, and while we are confident that we offer equal pay, this proportional gender split does not continue throughout the organisation contributing negatively towards both the mean and median pay gap. We are actively working to increase female recruitment and promotion in to more senior roles in the organisation, as shown in the metric highlighted at the end of the report.
Mean and median pay gaps 2025
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean (average) gender pay gap | 12.17% | 12.78% | 10.97% | 15% | 20.7% |
| Median gender pay gap | 16.79% | 16.56% | 15.97% | 18.41% | 14.1% |
Zenith’s 2025 Gender Bonus Gap
We have seen an increase in both mean and a decrease in median bonus pay gap this year.
- Mean ↑ 18.8%
- Median ↓ 20%
As with the pay gap, the weighting of senior male colleagues within our business has a large impact on this figure. We know that more senior roles, which are more male dominated in the upper quartile – come with greater bonus earning potential. This significantly increases our mean (average) bonus gap percentage. The reportable year also saw a pay out to our Executive Committee which at the time was 89% male.
Part time working is another important factor. We actively support flexible and part time arrangements, and 9% of our colleagues work part time. These roles are typically taken up by women, reflecting the wider UK picture where 71% of all part time workers are women. Within Zenith, this figure is higher at 83%. Because bonus calculations are prorated for part time colleagues, this reduces overall bonus earnings for women and contributes to the bonus pay gap. This is a perverse outcome of doing the right thing.
The lower 4% median result reflects the strength of our reward framework, which ensures equity in both role and associated bonus.
Mean and median bonus gaps 2025
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean (average) bonus pay gap | 63.09% | 44.29% | 58.4% | 61% | 55.4% |
| Median bonus pay gap | 4% | 24.0% | 2.27% | 16.9% | 0% |
Percentage of colleagues receiving a bonus 2025
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 63.78% | 54.48% | 46.06% | 44.9% | 44.6% |
| Female | 79.32% | 74.69% | 62.14% | 55% | 60.4% |
Closing the gap
Since launching our People Promise in 2021, we have focused on building a more diverse, inclusive, and supportive workplace for everyone, at every stage of their career. Our focus on progression and development is at the heart of how we close the gap.
- Agile working at Zenith focuses on the customer, team and individual needs. It expands access to work, strengthens inclusion, and sustains performance. It is a core capability we continue to build on – by focusing on outcomes, rather than presence. This enables more access to progression. Our intention is to focus on creating more part time and senior opportunities to close the mean and median pay gap (recognising that an increase in part time colleagues will impact our bonus pay gap).
- We have committed that 80% of roles will be filled internally by 2028, and our approach to performance and development focuses on both behaviours and technical skills. We have redesigned our internal progression approach and focused on ‘how’ work gets done – removing CV submission from the process – so hiring managers can focus on an individual’s current abilities and their performance assessment. All of which supports greater inclusive progression.
- We play an active role in our industry through the Automotive 30% Club, a network committed to achieving at least 30 percent female representation in senior roles across the automotive sector.
- Female vehicle technicians and mechanics make up just 10% of the workforce across the UK. Encouraging females to enter the industry is an area we continue to focus on through our early careers activity and wider partnerships.
