Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025

To help mark this year’s International Women's Day (IWD) on 8 March, colleagues from the Service have helped organise a Women in the Fire Service training and development event at Severn Park, Taunton.

Operational and non-operational colleagues will attend workshops on pathways for advancement, opportunities for personal development and fire safety and protection. There will be interactive sessions on incident command training, using breathing apparatus, have-a-go at control, and training on road traffic collisions. It will also be a fantastic opportunity for them to connect with colleagues from Cornwall, Dorset and Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Avon Fire and Rescue Services.

The theme this year is #AccelerateAction, which emphasises the need to increase the pace towards gender equality. According to data from the World Economic Forum, at the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158, which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity.

We continue to make progress towards gender equality, but we know we have more work to do.

Women are under-represented in the fire service. We have a gender pay gap, which means that, on average, women who work for us have less total income than men.

This is not a result of men and women doing the same job and being paid differently, but rather that there are many more men and they tend to occupy more senior roles.

The gender pay gap gives us some indication of how far we are on the journey to embracing equity between the genders. We are pleased, that since 2018, our gender pay gap has decreased and is now less than half the national pay gap. You can find out more about how we are addressing our gender pay gap.

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate and champion the women in our lives, to recognise and celebrate difference and make a positive change for us all.

Read personal stories from some of our remarkable women.