In our business there are a number of female leaders within our Group, including our, Head of operational development, Head of marketing, Head of aftersales, Head of contact centre, Head of CRM & Data and Head of Operational Finance, as well as a number of female Financial Controllers throughout our dealership businesses.

In 2017, we appointed our first female Workshop Controller and have several female line managers at dealership and head office levels holding such positions as Sales Controller, Customer Manager, facilities manager, Host Manager and Payroll Manager.

In addition, we are actively recruiting female Sales Advisors and Technicians (our largest group of roles), by developing specific campaigns to attract female talent to roles previously dominated by male colleagues.

Our Group has advanced plans to build robust relationships with schools and universities by providing an early introduction to the roles available in the industry and to dispel the myth that the automotive sector is an excessively male environment.

A major issue for our industry is that a disproportionate number of females are attracted into administration, hosting and customer service roles, which tend to be lower paid.  As a Group, and as an industry, we need to increase the number of females in senior management positions in dealership businesses, including in the roles of sales managers and service managers, as well as in sales advisor and technician posts.

Whilst our initial gender pay gap results may look concerning: on average men earn £17.99 per hour and female colleagues earn £13.28, this is a direct result of only 30 per cent of our workforce being women.  As a traditionally male-dominated industry, the automotive sector currently employs more men than women at board and senior manager levels and this has created a disparity in pay.