Our 2026 Diversity and Inclusion Report

You might notice that our D&I report last year was dated 2024. We’ve decided to report our D&I initiatives in line with the financial year, to be more consistent with our Annual Report. This report contains our progress from April 2025 to March 2026. 

We’re on a mission to make money work for everyone. In order to do that, we’re building a bank for everyone, employees and customers alike. And to best serve the 15 million personal banking and 800k+ business customers we have, we believe it’s vital to represent their diversity within our own organisation.

Now in our eleventh year, we’ve been reporting on our D&I progress since the beginning. While we’ve made great progress since then, we believe that success in D&I doesn’t mean being perfect; it means being accountable and staying the course through the wins and the challenges. And this takes constant effort from everyone. It requires leadership buy-in, trying new things, and listening to feedback from communities. 

We want Monzo to be a place where people can come and do their best work in a way that feels authentic and valuable to themselves and their career aspirations. Our 2026 report is a snapshot of progress we’ve made to achieve this goal. 

ℹ️ Throughout this report you’ll see references to representation data of folks who work at Monzo. We use this as an indicator to understand how well we represent the areas where we live and work as a business. We use UK census data for this benchmark. Where we’re able to, we then overlay data related to people currently working in industry. We use representation data to understand how best to attract people to Monzo and to understand the kinds of needs and support folks might have to best support them. 

In 2025, we set up a dedicated working group in our technology discipline to make progress on D&I across Engineering teams. While we wanted to start small and trial some initiatives, we’re already seeing positive results. 

Led by our VP of Engineering, the ‘Diversity in Tech’ group brings together accountable senior leaders across the Tech disciplines, D&I, Hiring and People Partner teams focused on three pillars: Hiring, Supporting and Growing. Initial efforts were designed to support underrepresented genders in tech, but as the work grows, we’re now including people of colour. 

Hiring - In 2025, we launched unconscious bias training to all Engineering hiring managers to support inclusive recruitment practices. We also launched an apprenticeship programme, hired Engineering and Data interns for summer 2026, and ran the fifth Coding Black Females mentor programme. This saw 28 external mentees being paired with 28 Monzo Engineers on a three month programme working on a project that was presented back to the cohort in a final session. 

Supporting - We started running listening sessions for women in Engineering to understand their experiences with caregiver leave (what we call parental/maternity leave). We also piloted neurodiversity training for managers to support their teams, which we plan to roll out further in the near future.

Growing - We provided greater clarity and guidance on internal recruitment and moves, refreshing our internal mobility process in Engineering and made opportunities more transparent and accessible. The Engineering function also launched an internal mentorship programme, pairing up more experienced Engineers with those earlier on in their careers to offer advice on career planning. Importantly, we also built clearer guidance for folks who were thinking about moving from an Individual Contributor role to Management roles across Engineering and Data and vice versa, keeping people informed of the skills and experience needed should they wish to broaden or change their career focus. 

It’s still early days, but positive results are already starting to show. Representation of women in tech leadership has improved 3.7pp from 24.6% to 28.3% in the last financial year, against a metric of 25%. Representation of women in tech overall has also increased from 28.9% to 32% (+3.1pp) in the same time period. For the first time, we also now have more women Engineering Directors than men. And as part of our performance season D&I analysis, in technical roles, women are also overrepresented in the higher performance ratings against expected distribution based on headcount. 

We can’t say for certain that the work started by the ‘Diversity in Tech’ working group is the reason for these positive results. However, we can say that intentional focus, backed by leadership, data and feedback from underrepresented communities has led to engagement and built confidence to try new things, to learn and to iterate until we get it right.  

It’s been a year of cultural and inclusive learning for Monzo. At the beginning of this year, we launched a D&I Onboarding learning module for all new starters. The course is aimed at giving people a taste of what D&I means at Monzo, to understand the different ways they can get involved and their allyship commitments from day one. As we grow, it’s important that people feel the impact of our inclusive culture, no matter where they join in the business. We also run a one-hour virtual session which gives all new starters the opportunity to meet the D&I team and hear more about the work we are doing. The key message is that D&I is everyone’s responsibility at Monzo. 

Eliminating unconscious bias has also been a focus. This isn’t the first time we’ve created learning on bias, but recently we’ve been hearing an appetite from around the business to support challenging day-to-day biases. So far we’ve targeted moments of important decision-making across the employee lifecycle. We launched unconscious bias training across hiring and more recently, for all managers who were involved in the calibration process in performance season. This moment in time has a very real, lasting impact on people's career progression, so it’s important we’re all doing our bit to get the most consistent outcomes for the teams we support. 

Our learning offering on neurodiversity is also developing. Aside from the pilot in our Tech discipline, we’ve launched a Neurodiversity Hub to provide a central location to find key information on neurodiversity support. Whether it be access to flexibility and adjustments, manager guidance, or information around occupational health, we listened to feedback that supporting neurodiversity meant having information in one place. 

And we’re not done yet! This year we’ll be bringing more neurodiversity learning across Monzo through learning modules and events. 

Each year, we report on the progress of the three official employee networks at Monzo. These are: The Women’s Network, Black Monzo and the LGBTQ+ Network. We also have many unofficial community groups at Monzo, social groups like ‘Mumzo’ (our mothers community), ‘dogs’ (a firm favourite), ‘buddhism’ (a newer, faith based group launched last year) and ‘allergies and restrictions’ (a group formed this year, offering support for those with allergies and reactive conditions). 

While we highlight the activities of our official employee networks in the D&I report, there’s something for everyone and we’re proud of the diverse work and social channels, largely driven by passionate people, making Monzo a place where everyone can belong through smaller moments of connection.  

In our last report, we shared news on the launch of our first ever Women’s Network. In its first year, the network has grown to over 730 members, quickly becoming our biggest identity-based community group. This isn’t a surprise given that women now make up 50.9% of Monzo’s employee population. And we’ve been delighted by the breadth of conversations they’ve started across many different topics as part of their events series this year. 

They turned International Women’s Day into a full week of activities. A fireside chat on the International Women’s Day theme ‘Give to Gain’ consisting of a panel of Monzo’s most senior women, a lunch and learn on menstrual health, a virtual workout class, a networking breakfast and a session entitled ‘Language, Likability and Leadership’, an eye-opening look at how gendered language shapes our perception of each other. 

In November, the Women’s Network launched the ‘Bridging the Gap’ series, which invited women across Monzo to take part in a series of workshops, the first being led by an external coach on the topic of building confidence and resilience. This event was attended by over 100 women, both in person and virtually, and the series continues into 2026. 

To start making an impact in their first year, the Women’s Network highlighted the importance of engaging with male allies early on, so that everyone is part of gender equity at Monzo. In January, they hosted a panel discussion with Monzo’s most senior men including, former CEO TS Anil, Chief Product Officer Andy Smart, Chief Tech Officer Matej Pfajfar, Group Financial Officer Tom Oldham and former Chief Banking Officer Kunal Malani. These allies shared the importance of mentorship, but also more importantly, the role of sponsorship to support women progress in their careers, highlighting the power of advocating for others when they aren’t in the room. 

While career development, allyship and wellbeing have been key themes in the event calendar for the Women’s Network this year, they’ve also pushed the boundaries against typical network conversations and explored some bold topics that we haven’t seen before at Monzo. An example of this is the Witchcraft and Womanhood event they ran at Halloween, which took a look at the history of persecution of women, modern day injustices and how prejudices of the past continue to manifest today. 

The Women’s Network also gave back this year. They raised £1,893 for their charity partners Bloody Good Period and Tech She Can through the sales of hot coral coffee in partnership with Girls who Grind coffee through Monzo’s swag shop. 

In February, we published our annual Gender Pay Gap report. This year, we saw a slight widening of our gap between April 2024 and April 2025. Our median gender pay gap increased from 6.3% to 8.7%. This is being driven by a higher number of men in the most senior roles in tech. Our D&I efforts continue to make sure we have the right representation and pay structure in place to make Monzo a place where women in tech can grow their careers. 

At Monzo, it’s important we allow people to build community wherever it’s needed. We have a Women’s Network and we also have a community group dedicated to underrepresented genders in tech, so when the Data discipline mentioned they were thinking of building a community of women in Data, we were thrilled. In the industry, male analysts and data scientists still outnumber women 4 to 1. 

Launched in November, the internal community now has 59 members and an external partnership with Women in Data under their belt. To set up for success, they’ve run some listening sessions with women in Data across Monzo to understand what the challenges and wins look like for the community to help develop their plans for the next year.   

Now in its sixth year, Black Monzo continues to go from strength to strength. The network now consists of more than 300 members who come together to empower Black and mixed-Black folk at Monzo to advance in their careers through engaging in active community building. 

This year, Black Monzo hosted a few firsts. Internally, they published their own ‘Impact Report’ which highlighted their mission, goals and progress against them. They also hosted their own ‘All Hands’ programme, a regular touchpoint for people to stay connected to progress against their goals and to hear about their events calendar. 

For Black History Month, they hosted a suite of events, the flagship being a Black Tech event called ‘Black Monzo: The Future is Ours to Build’ which welcomed 200 external Black tech professionals into Monzo’s London event space to network and listen to a fireside chat with Marshmallow Co-CEO Oliver Kent-Braham. 

During Black History Month they also held inspiring talks with Shaun Wallace and Action Jackson, plus a men’s mental health conversation with David Larbi, with more than 100 people in attendance.

They’ve also played a pivotal role in advancing racial inclusion across Monzo as we set to refresh our company wide Race Inclusion Plan, originally launched in 2022. Black Monzo have joined forces with the D&I team to set the strategic direction and activities that will have the most impact in achieving Monzo’s goals of improving representation for People of Colour in leadership roles, as well as support the ongoing development of Black and mixed-Black folk in their careers. This work is critical to Monzo’s D&I growth, and we’ll be excited to share more progress on this in our next report. 

Black Monzo also gave back to some important causes. In September, they ran a fundraiser with the Black Funding Network, which raised £18,520 for three local, Black led charities, Children with Voices, East London School of Music and Construction and Engineering Opportunities. They also ran a Black History Month swag fundraiser, raising £1,260 for the Sickle Cell Society and Children With Voices.

Our LGBT+’s Network’s mission is: "Strengthening our LGBTQ+ Monzonauts and allies community by sharing experiences, building on existing momentum in helping everyone belong and progressing careers with pride." 

This year, they spent some time revamping how the network committee is structured to support its future ambitions. As they’ve grown in numbers, currently at 350 members, the committee that heads up the network activities has also grown, adding new faces and fresh perspectives. 

Pride is a cornerstone of the network's annual calendar and this year was no different. We attended Cardiff and London Pride, and offered an in-house virtual Pride celebration with drag king bingo for those who couldn’t make it in person, which saw 60 people attending. 

LGBTQ+ folk and allies walked in both parades to many people waving their Monzo bank cards, a sight we never get tired of seeing. While we had a great time, and understand that Pride is an important moment to pause and celebrate the progress that has been made, at Monzo LGBTQ+ inclusion is a focus all year round. 

For World AIDS Day, we commemorated by displaying The National AIDS Memorial Quilts in our London offices to allow people to see the designs and interact with the stories of those who lost their lives to AIDS. We created interactive videos that shared the stories on Slack for those who couldn't make it to the office in person. Whilst a moving experience, it allowed us to reflect on the lives of those who came before us and paved the way for LGBTQ+ people in the UK today.

Monzo’s trans community is a small but active group of folk distributed across the organisation and currently make up around 1% of Monzo’s total population. In collaboration with our ‘Trans Lead’ (a member of the broader LGBTQ+ Network Committee), we’ve been spending time holding listening sessions over the last year to understand how we can best support them during times of uncertainty. 

This year we’ve held a number of open forums to share updates as external news has unfolded, helping people stay on top of the latest developments and providing a space for Monzo to just do some listening. 

Recently we held an away day, where the community came together in our Cardiff office to collaborate, share feedback on our trans inclusion policy and manager guidance and spend time on their own wellbeing. In 2025, we also enhanced gender dysphoria coverage with our UK healthcare provider to better support the community’s healthcare needs. 

The conversation around gender identity is complex, and we know there are many different perspectives and voices involved. But for us, the priority is simple: listening to and supporting the people who count on us as an employer. 

We feel very fortunate to receive external recognition for our D&I work. It’s not why we do it, but it’s great to see individuals recognised for the great things they are doing to build an inclusive culture.

Stephanie Pagni, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Executive Sponsor of the Women’s Network was named one of the Top 100 Women in Finance 2025, by Financial News. In addition to the exceptional impact she has made across her legal career, Stephanie also continues to lead the Women’s Network with passion, while holding Monzo to account on its commitment to gender equality. 

Five women also made Innovate Finance’s Women in FinTech Powerlist 2025, and six made their Pride in Fintech Powerlist 2025. Dr Elizabeth Blakelock, Accessibility and Inclusion Lead, also received a Special Recognition Award from the Collaboration Network for her contributions to Inclusion. 

Since our last report, Monzo has also been recognised as the ‘Most Inclusive Employer’ at the Employer's Excellence Awards and received the ‘DEI Innovation Award’ at the UnderOne D&I Awards. Whilst winning awards is lovely, more than anything, we hope it provides a signal to our industry and beyond that inclusion is something to be nurtured and celebrated and that Monzo shares an open invitation for collaboration with those also on the lifelong journey towards belonging.  

This year we launched a pilot mentoring programme which offered members of our employee networks the opportunity to partner with an experienced colleague to discuss their career goals and receive guidance. 

We’ve heard feedback that career progression is a key priority for our communities, so we launched a pilot consisting of over 100 mentors and mentees who embarked on a six month programme. 

We offered guidance along the way including templates to help structure and sustain effective mentoring conversations, personal development plans and feedback support, drop-in sessions aimed at CV writing and interview readiness. The programme received great feedback, with an uptick in Personal Development Plan creation from 63% of participants pre-programme to 76% upon completion. 

Pre-programme the majority of mentees scored their confidence levels to own their career development as a 3 out of 5. On completion, the majority had increased this to 5 out of 5. 

Mentoring takes many forms across Monzo, and everyone is encouraged to seek out a mentor if it will help their career goals. Now that the pilot is complete, we’re looking at ways to evolve and scale it. 

To remain consistent with previous reporting, we’ve labelled the dates for this year's graphs as 2025 as they represent data at the end of the financial year 2026.

You can read more about what we’re doing to address this in our latest Gender Pay Gap Report.