Aardman Equality, Diversity & Inclusion update, February 2025

Aardman is committed to being open and transparent about the work we are doing to improve representation throughout our workforce and to increase the level of on-screen diversity in our productions. This is the ninth in a series of regular updates documenting our progress. Please see links to our previous updates below.

Progress made in the previous six months (September 2024 – February 2025):

The below correlates to the priorities we set ourselves in our previous Equality, Diversity & Inclusion update, in August 2024:

• We created and published our Anti-Racism Action Plan to sit alongside our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Charter. We launched the Plan in January and shared it widely across the business through SharePoint updates, with the aim to improve representation, experiences and progression of employees from a Global Majority background in our community and supporting initiatives within our industry. We set out three key commitments to ensure we achieve our goal of becoming an anti-racist organisation. First, build awareness, understanding and support within our community. Second, increase access to opportunities to improve racial equity within Aardman. Third, assess policies and processes to embed best behaviours internally and externally. This is vitally important work and further anti-racism training is planned throughout the year with Inclusive Employers. This includes an Active Bystander training session, as well as providing team knowledge and tools to speak up on issues. 
  
  

• Our Neurodiversity Toolkit, which will be available to all employees, has been prepared and is going through final approvals before we roll it out across the business in March. The toolkit provides key resources, including a glossary of terms and a reasonable adjustments plan, as well as support for line-managers and employees. We are continuing our work to increase conversations and awareness around neurodiversity to ensure we accommodate team members who identify as neurodiverse.
  
  

• To celebrate Black History Month, we hosted a conversation at our Gas Ferry Road HQ with Dr Mena Fombo, exploring historical representation of Black people in animation and film. We also shared this talk online for employees who could not attend in person. In addition, we created and shared an anti-racism toolkit with the team, providing links to various resources on topics including ‘Historical Background: racism today’, ‘White privilege’, ‘Understanding everyday exclusions’ and ‘How to be an Active Bystander’.
  
  

• We continued our support of The Pachamama Project, a Bristol-based charity which sews sustainable, reusable period products to help end period poverty for refugees. We hold bi-monthly workshops for team members to make the products, which then get distributed to recipients around the world.
  
  

• We made the decision to use the increased pot for bursaries at the Aardman Academy to fully fund one place on our full-time Stop Motion 1 course.
  
  

• We successfully became a member of Inclusive Employers and are looking into the process of becoming accredited.
  
  

• Working with Bristol Works, we delivered a workshop to a SEN school in North Bristol with a group of 25 students. In addition, we delivered a workshop with South Gloucestershire College and hosted an online event with V&A South Kensington featuring director Gav Strange sharing career insights.

OCTOBER 2024 STAFF SURVEY

In 2024, we decided to do a standalone Equality, Diversity & Inclusion survey, separate from our annual staff Engagement Survey. The EDI survey was conducted in October with results shared with the company in November. Unfortunately, the response rate was lower than in the previous year (47% down from 66%), which can be attributed to a number of factors impacting the studio in the final quarter of the year. We hope for a higher response rate in 2025 so that we can more accurately compare and track our progress year-on-year. When reading any comparisons below, please bear in mind the lower participation rate for 2024, and that these statistics represent only those who completed the survey. Some of the key findings of the survey are:

• We have a positive spread in terms of age of employees. In 2024 the biggest rise in age participation was for ages 25 – 34 at 33.5% of employees, compared to 28.9% in 2023. 
  
  

• There was an increase in the proportion of female respondents, which shows we have good gender representation, although we know we have more work to do to understand the gender pay gap and work on policies around menstruation, menopause, and broad support for women at work. 96% of respondents answered ‘yes’ that their gender matches their sex at birth, and 2% answered ‘no’, showing that we need to continue to support all colleagues.
  
  

• 15.6% of respondents are members of the LGBTQIA+ community, which is slightly lower than last year.
  
  

• When asked about religion, 66% responded ‘none of the above’, which is similar to last year. This year we included a free text box for team members to self-identify and received more varied responses, including ‘Humanism’ and people choosing to write ‘no religion or belief’ over selecting ‘none of the above’ or ‘atheist’, but no respondents identified as Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, indicating a gap in representation.
  
  

• Regarding ethnicity, 90.3% of respondents were White and 4.9% from the Global Majority, down from 5.5% last year. The 2021 Census data indicated that 82% of people in England and Wales are White, and 18% come from the Global Majority, suggesting we need to do more to bring the studio in-line with national averages. 
  
  

• 3.9% of respondents identified as disabled, down slightly from 4.7% last year.
  
  

• 23.3% of respondents identified as neurodiverse. This is an increase from 19.7% in 2023, which we hope correlates with the focus we have had on this area over recent years. 
  
  

• This year we also asked participants how diverse and inclusive they felt Aardman to be. 69% answered that Aardman was not diverse (down from 77.7% last year), but 74% felt that Aardman was inclusive. The latter positively suggests that respondents feel the culture at Aardman is inclusive and welcoming, the former indicates an awareness of the gaps in representation amongst the workforce.
  
  

• 91.7% of respondents felt they have a good understanding of what EDI means, down slightly from 94.5% last year.
  
  

• 84% are aware of Aardman’s EDI Taskforce and what it does.
  
  

• 87.9% of respondents have completed at least one training session such as unconscious bias. This is a slight decrease from last year’s figure of 93.3%, so we are investigating how our training is reaching all employees.
  
  

• 89.3% of respondents felt that they can safely report their EDI concerns, which is in-line with last year’s figure (88.8%). 

We are continuing to reflect on how the above results should inform our EDI work going forward, in addition to the below priorities for the coming six months. We're continually exploring how to improve representation at Aardman. We know our stats are not in line with national statistics, and continue to strive to make all productions in line with the BFI standards, and are working on internal culture-building projects (e.g. anti-racism) to make us more inclusive within the studio walls. Additionally, we are continuing to look at diverse job boards and hiring people from a wide range of backgrounds, as well as building on our outreach activity targeting young people who are underrepresented in the industry, work we view as long-term benefits to Aardman and the industry.

Priorities for the coming six months (March - August 2025):

In the coming six months we will:

• Continue working on neurodiversity awareness in and around the office, providing training (such as the Active Bystander training we will be rolling out to all staff) and creating an environment where employees are able to openly discuss this topic. 
  
  

• Develop a week-long residential stop motion animation camp and development programme for students from diverse backgrounds, in partnership with Calling the Shots and the BFI.
  
  

• Explore how we can support St Paul’s Carnival, recognising the importance of Bristol’s African Caribbean communities.
  
  

• Continue our relationship and support of Bristol Pride and Off The Record's 'Freedom' programme, which provides a safe, joyful and supportive space for young people aged 11-25 who are LGBTQIA+ or are exploring their gender and sexuality.
  
  

• Support Ukrainian animation studio Animagrad by offering 10 places on the Aardman Academy's online storyboarding programme plus mentorship.
  
  

• Relaunch Aardman’s mentorship scheme this March, with 16 sets of mentors and mentees paired up across the business. 
  
  

• Work with Into Film in March, hosting a workshop with a model maker and a talk with Gav Strange as part of National Careers Week at Yeovil College.

If you would like to know more about the above, or are a partner who would like to support one of our initiatives, please contact Pauline Mallam, our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Manager, at Pauline.Mallam@aardman.com.