People Report 2025
Our People Report highlights the diverse voices of Baillie Gifford. We’re building a workplace that sparks curiosity, innovation and better ideas, because diverse perspectives lead to stronger research and smarter investment decisions.
Welcome to our annual People Report
Welcome to our annual People Report. We're delighted to share this with you.
This report aims to capture the essence of what it’s like working at Baillie Gifford, emphasising employee support, access to resources and daily work experiences. It also underscores the firm's core values and activities, such as philanthropy and volunteering. We continue to recognise the importance of data and are actively gathering additional demographic metrics, which are also included in this report.
Enjoy reading about the thoughts and experiences of the people of Baillie Gifford.
Kathrin Hamilton
Partner and Chair of the Inclusion Group
Inclusion is at the heart of who we are as a firm. By embracing varied backgrounds and thinking, we will make progress, recruit and retain the best talent, and ultimately add value for clients over the long term.
Shared progress
Throughout this report, you'll hear directly from our people, as they offer insights into our ongoing journey towards greater inclusivity. We have been building talent pipelines, reducing the gender pay gap and improving internal mobility.
But we know there's more to do. Open, honest dialogue is key, and we encourage everyone to share their experiences and perspectives to foster a more inclusive environment. The report reflects on the progress we’ve made and continuing our firm-wide commitment to building a more inclusive workplace.
Our global presence
While most of our employees are based in Edinburgh, our investment approach and presence extend globally. We leverage technology to enhance collaboration across our global locations and foster more inclusive work environments. The map below shows our office locations and staff numbers at each one.
Our shared beliefs
Discover what drives us. Read more about the values that shape our thinking, culture and commitment to long-term progress.
Growing together
Our people are our greatest asset at Baillie Gifford. We know that attracting top talent is crucial, so we are dedicated to creating opportunities for everyone.
We aim to build a culture where individual strengths and curiosity unite, putting us at the forefront of investment management. Learning and development go beyond the basics; they are integrated into everything we do. To help our people grow, everyone has access to a wide range of workshops, courses, on-demand teaching and role-based learning. Crucially, development is people-led and is interest based, not just role specific.
In addition to recruiting experienced hires, we offer a variety of early career programmes such as internships, graduate programmes and apprenticeships.
From kitchen to code
One young person has found a new path through Baillie Gifford’s modern apprenticeship programme, by gaining hands-on experience, community support and a future in systems engineering.
Future ready, people first
As a firm, we strive to lead our field, adding long-term value for clients. Equally important is fostering a positive, productive culture where everyone feels they belong and have a purpose.
The emergence of new technologies, increased knowledge and evolving social norms prompted us to reflect on the skills that will be critical for the future workforce.
In 2023 we introduced the Baillie Gifford Critical Skills Framework. This framework acts as a unified language for skill development across the firm. It enhances feedback and collaboration, supports personal growth and clarifies the skills necessary for success in different roles. The framework also brings greater transparency to recruitment and internal mobility, by helping individuals better understand available opportunities and showcase their strengths.
Shared success
We believe internal mobility is key to personal growth and career development. It opens up opportunities for both permanent and temporary moves, allowing individuals to broaden their experience and build skills that align with evolving business needs.
We also champion mentoring, which helps us perform better in our roles, develop personal skills and capabilities and strengthen informal networks across the firm. These connections not only support individual development but also contribute to a more resilient and collaborative organisation, ultimately benefiting our clients.
These initiatives and their outcomes reflect our shared belief that our firm must be an engaging and progressive place to work.
Read about the experiences of some of our people who have benefitted from mentoring below.
Building relationships
Mentoring helps our employees grow and connect with others. Hear from individuals across the firm about what they have gained as a mentor or mentee.
Lasting benefits
We place great value on recognising the contributions of our people. Our aim is to ensure that our benefits remain competitive and reflect the effort and impact of employees across the firm. Supporting employee health and wellbeing is central to this, and we're committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance within a progressive and engaging workplace.
Since 2019, we have offered enhanced equal parental leave of up to 52 weeks, available to all our people regardless of gender or parental type. This policy allows colleagues to spend time with their families and provides financial security.
Getting off to a good start
Read one colleague’s honest and inspiring story about navigating new parenthood, overcoming career concerns and returning to work with confidence. Learn how Baillie Gifford’s supportive culture, flexible policies, and peer networks made all the difference to this father.
Listening, learning, leading
We encourage our people to be curious, innovative and forward-thinking, bringing diverse perspectives and experiences together to create an engaging and progressive workplace. Ultimately, we believe these elements lead to better research ideas and investment decisions for our clients over the long term.
Our long-term inclusion goals are focused on Accountability, Culture and Talent (ACT). These goals help ensure our colleagues thrive in an inclusive environment. We design our actions and measure our progress by listening and engaging with our people, as well as analysing data to better understand any structural barriers. We measure our progress annually through a range of perspectives, including surveys and focus groups, to continually refine our focus and improve our approach.
Our long-term inclusion goals (ACT)
Drive accountability across the firm
We must be more transparent through regular and open communication, acknowledging what we’re doing well and what we could do more of. We track our progress through formal reporting. This not only holds us accountable but also enables us to be data-driven and focus our efforts on elements that foster long-term sustainable change.
Create a culture where everyone feels safe, valued and included
To ensure we can harness diversity of thought, we must continue to build an inclusive culture. This involves listening to one another, continuing to learn and engaging in constructive conversations when we feel behaviours are not aligned with Our Shared Beliefs.
Attract, develop and retain talent
Our employees will be representative of the societies we live in. We will focus on diversifying where we recruit from to ensure that we have the widest pool of talent available. We will develop programmes and initiatives to support talent to thrive and identifying and minimising barriers in our processes, policies, and approach across all career stages.
Walking the walk
We have concentrated our efforts on understanding where our barriers to progress (toward recruiting from the widest pool of talent and developing our people) are and have a supporting action plan for each of our goals to address them. We track our actions.
By continuously improving our processes, staying transparent in our approach and holding ourselves accountable, we're creating a clear and intentional path toward meaningful, lasting change.
Data at a glance
Engaging our people
Our annual engagement survey helps measure our progress in improving inclusion for all employees. It gives employees the opportunity to share their views on a range of topics, from pride and motivation, to commitment and belonging. We believe employee experience matters. The insights gathered from these surveys directly inform actions at the firmwide, department and team levels.
Participation
76%
of our people completed the annual staff survey in May 2025.
Engagement
61%
is our engagement score this year.
Engagement scores are an indication of pride, motivation and commitment to the firm.
Making connections
We encourage a blend of formal and employee-led initiatives to foster inclusion across the firm. There are various groups, clubs and networks at Baillie Gifford that help people connect with others beyond their day-to-day roles, whether through running clubs, musician meet-ups or other shared interests.
Our seven employee-led networks drive idea generation, raise awareness of key issues, help shape our policies and processes, and help build a stronger sense of belonging across the firm.
Strategic partnerships
Our external partnerships provide valuable resources, insights and expertise that help us strengthen our approach. We regularly review these partnerships to ensure they align with our strategic priorities and goals.
We also engage with industry bodies to help shape how the asset management sector addresses people-related issues, thereby amplifying our voice and contributing to broader change.
Below is a small selection of some of the organisations we work with:
The bigger picture
We support charities across the globe, because it is the right thing to do and because we believe we have a responsibility to help our communities. Our focus is on initiatives where we can make a meaningful difference.
We support a wide range of projects, including academia, arts and culture, community initiatives, education, environment, social causes and international charities that support disaster relief and help people facing poverty and food insecurity. Our philanthropy supports our shared belief that our actions and behaviours should support society as a whole.
Most of our philanthropic giving is directed towards charities in Scotland. However, as a global company, our international offices also support local causes chosen by their teams, ensuring our impact is both global and locally relevant.
Philanthropy
Cyrenians is an Edinburgh-based charity tackling the causes and consequences of homelessness across Scotland. Cyrenians takes a public health approach to homelessness prevention. As well as providing direct support to those experiencing street homelessness, it offers preventative support such as addiction recovery and family mediation, aimed at stopping people becoming homeless in the first place.
Tackling homelessness requires intervention at every level - which is why Cyrenians meets people where they are and provides support for as long as it takes.
Baillie Gifford is proud to partner with Cyrenians to create meaningful and lasting change, and we have supported its charity since 2020. Initially, our funding helped transform its Cook School into a food production kitchen, producing more than 100,000 cooked meals, seven days a week for vulnerable families and NHS staff. We then supported its organisational development, helping them to strengthen their charity by developing a People Strategy, investing in training and strengthening the financial systems. We now support its ongoing work to tackle homelessness.
Our social impact is also amplified through regular staff engagement with volunteering opportunities, giving our teams the opportunity to broaden their understanding of social issues and personally make a difference in our community.
Giving back
Everyone is offered paid volunteering days each year to support their chosen charity or project. Teams can also get involved in our community work through volunteering days or sharing their skills and expertise.
We also run fundraising activities for our employee-voted charity of the year, and provide opportunities for employees to nominate causes they care about for one-off donations.
Global volunteering
For over three years, our Hong Kong office has supported Gingko House, a charity dedicated to promoting employment and prosperity for the elderly. For nearly two decades, Gingko House has provided volunteering opportunities through its restaurants and various social enterprises, from an organic farm to food manufacturing.
In previous years, our employees packed hot meal boxes for the homeless, elderly and disadvantaged. This year, they embraced a new approach. On 23 January 2025, just before the Chinese New Year, they distributed goodie bags to elderly residents in the So Uk neighbourhood, ensuring these residents felt the charity's love and support. They also conducted home visits, engaging in friendly conversations with the elders. This initiative aimed to bring joy and companionship to the elderly community, fostering a sense of connection and care.