Autotrader has voluntarily published its ethnicity pay gap since 2021. It began with a broader cultural commitment to inclusion and an appreciation that when representation is uneven at different levels across and organisation, it shows up in the pay gap data.
Accountability sits at the very top
Autotrader does not treat the pay gap as a standalone metric but sits within a wider set of Cultural KPIs alongside commercial objectives. As such, the Autotrader Leadership Team has shared responsibility for maintaining a culture of inclusion and growing the level of ethnic representation in the organisation. The benefits of this accountability at the most senior level of the business are that it ensures the pay gap is reviewed as an important metric and provides the agenda with durability and sustainability necessary to make long-term impact and change.
Kickstarting an ethnicity pay gap reporting campaign is not resource intensive. The costs of reporting are low, and unlike other compliance exercises, calculating a pay gap does not require external consultants. Organisations should not worry too much about deploying large human and financial resources to publish their ethnicity pay gap.
The importance of data sharing
Autotrader’s sharing rate – the percentage of employees who have voluntarily chosen to share their ethnic background – is at 95% as of 2026. Reaching this high figure was through the application of different initiatives and a multi-year approach rather than a single effort, split into different phases.
The first phase was through a broad cultural transformation. Autotrader engaged employees via workshops exploring what diversity and inclusion means and why the business is focused on bringing all colleagues on the same page. Their employee networks placed a central role in education, raising awareness and convening employees. Starting the conversation and focusing on workplace culture alone took rates to 60%.
The second phase required specific and targeted internal communications to demystify why the data is needed, who has access to it, and how it will be used. Being transparent while ensuring data remained confidential increased rates by approximately 5-10%.
The third phase focused on showing the value of data sharing. Autotrader’s ethnicity network demonstrated examples of what the data made possible, analysing engagement surveys disaggregated by ethnicity, identifying differences in employee experience, and the resulting actions from the organisation to tackle key issues. Looping the data back to action – of which publishing the ethnicity pay gap was one – showed the impact of increased rates.
Although data sharing is an ongoing campaign, the fourth and current phase is to reiterate the above points, including periodically sharing how-to videos from the HR system, to restating the confidentiality, security and impact of employee data. All new joiners have the option to share their ethnicity details as part of the onboarding process to ensure rates remain as high as possible.
The multiphase approach combined a mixture of company-wide campaigns with targeted and practical interventions, with messaging communicated from across the business, including senior leadership, the people and culture team and employee networks, which have all cumulatively resulted in a high disclosure rate.
Autotrader’s ethnicity pay gap
Autotrader uses a binary methodology, comparing ethnically diverse colleagues with white colleagues, rather than a more granular disaggregated approach. With approximately 1,200 employees, some ethnic groups are represented in small enough numbers where individuals can possibly be identified, and therefore the organisation took the approach to keep its external ethnicity pay gap reporting binary.
The data originally showed that while Autotrader saw an increase in ethnic minority representation, the volume of hires were in early-careers pathways, which consequentially pushed the pay gap in the opposite direction as junior employees are typically on lower salaries. Autotrader’s approach has been to acknowledge this openly and express that the pay gap may increase in the short-term but as more ethnically diverse colleagues progress their careers, the long-term effect would be a declining pay gap.
Representation has indeed continued to grow, with the most recent report showing a third of new hires were from ethnic minority backgrounds, with the mean and median pay gap narrowing as a result.
Key takeaways
Key takeaway 1: Accountability should sit at the most senior level with associated KPIs to make meaningful, long-term change. When cultural objectives are in lockstep with commercial ones, it signifies to both internal and external stakeholders that diversity and inclusion is not a nice-to-have but a core part of the organisation’s strategic goals.
Key takeaway 2: Organisations should take a multilayer and multiyear approach to increasing data sharing, which has the most significant impact on both the results of the ethnicity pay gap, but also the resulting action plan. As a rule of thumb, an 80% rate is typically a meaningful level to analyse, understand and create a plan of action.
Key takeaway 3: Many organisations may be apprehensive about publishing their ethnicity pay gap out of fear what the data might say, and how this will land both internally and externally. Autotrader show that transparency matched with an honest action plan to close the pay gap ensure those risks and fears do not materialise.
