Our people
Diane Thornhill
Global People Director
Loraine Martins
Global Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Director


More than 50 years ago, our founder Ove Arup spoke about the importance of making Arup’s “environment and working conditions as pleasant as possible within the available means”. During the year ending 31 March 2024, we established a global approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), one that is applicable to our 18,000 members worldwide.
Belonging at Arup
A focus on EDI is not new for us. Nevertheless, introducing a global strategy represents an important step forward. It will allow us to embed EDI more deeply within our business and to develop greater consistency of outcomes and impact for our people, clients and partners.
During the year ending 31 March 2024, we continued to make progress towards our current global inclusion commitments, and we incorporated an additional commitment to ensure that our physical and digital working environments are truly inclusive spaces – accessible, equitable and welcoming for members, clients and future talent with disabilities.
Our aim is to foster an inclusive culture where everyone has a sense of belonging at Arup. Belonging is the extent to which people feel part of the larger whole – truly valued, respected and understood for their unique identities, backgrounds and contributions. Our global EDI policy provides a foundation for this. Included within the policy is prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, employment status, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.
Through our ‘Welcome to Arup Programme’ we have introduced a series of initiatives to ensure that our approach to onboarding new joiners is also more welcoming and inclusive. The Arup Behaviour Charter sets clear expectations for all of us in relation to inclusive behaviours. The charter enables us to challenge behaviours that fall short of the standards we set for ourselves.
Gender balance
On gender, we continued to achieve hard-won, incremental progress. By 31 March 2024, the proportion of women amongst our total membership increased to 39.8 per cent from 39.4 per cent. Our stated goal is to reach and maintain a range of 40-60 per cent women members. Another area of progress focuses on the proportion of women within our leadership grades. This increased from 27.9 per cent to 29.0 per cent, while the proportion of women on our five regional executive boards was even greater, at 33.9 per cent.
Once again, our employee resource groups, which we refer to as Connect Networks, have worked closely with members of the Arup Group Board and the Arup Trustees, helping to build more awareness and a better understanding of the lived experience of our broad and diverse membership.
34
%
Female representation across our five regional boards
Wellbeing
We are keenly aware of the need to promote and protect the wellbeing of our members. Our ambition is to create and maintain an environment and work culture that supports all members’ mental, emotional and social needs and to provide support and tools to enable us to achieve a balance in life. During the year ending 31 March 2024, an Arup-wide wellbeing survey was undertaken, followed by focus group discussions with members to guide more improvement of our processes.
Celebrating our members’ milestones
Recognition remains important in ensuring our members feel motivated and engaged, and one aspect of recognition is how we celebrate our members’ service. At the start of the current financial year, we introduced a service milestones programme to show our appreciation to members who choose to grow their careers at Arup. These combine celebratory events, gifts, paid time-off, and the opportunity for a member to record their career story. Our recognition programme reflects a changing and multigenerational workforce with milestones that span the full duration of our members’ service, from one to 50 years.