Gender Equity Consulting UK

We partner with you to understand your gender balance and uncover the organisational and individual barriers that limit women’s progression. Our tailored consultation is grounded in strategic insight and evidence.

At the heart of our approach is the Acceleration Model – a proven process that addresses the behavioural and structural factors required for systemic change. By examining practices, processes, policies and cultural norms, we take an organisation-wide approach to embedding sustainable equity.

The Acceleration Model draws on a range of tools to design targeted, practical solutions that dismantle the barriers to gender equity unique to each organisation.

1. Diagnose 2. Align 3. Debias 4. Engage 5. Develop

Diagnose underlying barriers

Shape Talent always propose a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis to give you the most rounded insights into not only what the barriers are within your business, but also how these challenges are arising.

Quantitative diagnostics

Our proprietary Three Barriers Diagnostic helps you to pinpoint with precision the true underlying blockages within your organisation to greater gender balance. This provides real clarity on the areas which will make the biggest difference. In addition, we give you a clear picture of how intersectionality impacts different groups in different ways.

Qualitative diagnostics

We conduct targeted focus groups and interviews, also designed around our Three Barriers Model to help bring to life the lived experience of individuals within your organisation. These findings can be invaluable in enabling the storytelling that helps promote effective change.

Plan

With insights from data and feedback from across the organisation, we work with you to develop clear, measurable and actionable plans.

Ensure strategic alignment

We help you set a clear strategy and align your EDI efforts with your business goals, ensuring executive commitment and building a strong coalition to drive lasting change.

Landscape Review

We analyse your external environment – including competitors, customers, and supply chain partners – to understand the pressures shaping expectations on equity, diversity and inclusion. These insights help contextualise your internal goals, ensuring your strategy is both ambitious and commercially relevant.

Executive and Strategic Alignment

Change starts at the top. We engage your leadership team through a series of 1:1 interviews and a facilitated group session designed to raise awareness, surface barriers, and connect gender equity to your broader business strategy. This creates a shared understanding of the current state and establishes commitment to change at the highest levels.

De-bias and align the system

Create inclusive talent management processes

Despite best intentions, recruitment, career development, appraisal and reward practices often contain biases. People processes, policies and systems may have been passed down for years without anyone looking critically at them and asking whether they are gender inclusive in their ability to attract, retain, promote and reward talent. We review your talent management lifecycle and work with you to dismantle these biases and ensure your practices support your EDI goals.

Engage the organisation

Employee Resource Group Activation

Done well, ERGs and employee networks play a critical role in bridging employee voice and EDI strategies. We can help you from setting up a new ERG to reinvigorating networks that aren’t having the impact they should and everything in between. Our team can also provide mentoring and coaching to ERG Chairs and leadership teams.

Awareness-raising programmes

We help employees of all genders and levels of seniority to understand the challenges and benefits around gender equity, and the role they can play in enabling this. We do this through keynote sessions, webinars and coaching circles.

Develop talent

Talent accelerator programmes

Our Talent Accelerator solutions identify, develop and advance the talent who are critical to your future success – building inclusive, resilient and promotion-ready talent equipped for today’s complexity. Our high-touch, high-impact programmes fall into four key buckets:

Breaking Barriers programme for women and minoritised groups
Tailored to Lead hyper-personalised leadership development plans
Connected Leadership to help technical talent transition to impactful leaders
Sponsorship programmes to elevate visibility and optimise potential.

Coaching

Our Breaking Barriers coaching spans executive leadership, high-potential development, and key life-work moments and transitions, with our practice combining academic rigour with practical depth. Every programme is underpinned by our award-winning Three Barriers® research and delivered by top-tier, credentialed coaches who understand both people and power.

Explore our Breaking Barriers services

Learn about our Breaking Barriers Women’s Programmes and Breaking Barriers Coaching

GO TO SERVICES

Gender Equity Consulting

Dismantling barriers and disrupting gender biases