Slavery and human trafficking statement 2026
This statement is made pursuant to Section 54 of the UK Government Modern Slavery Act 2015. This statement covers Mott MacDonald Group.
Mott MacDonald's structure, business and supply chain
Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management and development consultancy headquartered in the United Kingdom, operating globally, complying with local legislation.
Our people: Comprise approximately 20,000 people, typically with tertiary education, and members of professional organisations.
Our supply chain: Comprises approximately 8,000 suppliers. The main categories of spending include IT, Consultancy, Premises, and Contingent workers.
Our policies
Our Purpose is to use our expertise for the benefit of our clients and the communities they serve.
Our code of conduct - "Our Code - Delivering with PRIDE", sets out our standard and expectation for all colleagues and those we work with, and advances our PRIDE values Progress, Respect, Integrity, Drive, and Excellence. With respect to slavery and human trafficking Our Code sets out:
"We reject modern slavery in all its forms, including servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. This includes providing a fair living wage for all our staff. We follow local legislation and regulation wherever we work. However, where Our Code provides the higher standard, we expect that to apply."
Our global commitments, responsibilities and approaches are outlined in our policies. These are reviewed annually and signed off by the Executive Board director, responsible for ensuring its implementation and continuous improvement. The key policies related to slavery and human trafficking are:
We are committed to providing effective grievance channels and access to remedy for anyone affected by human rights, labour, or modern slavery issues in our operations or supply chain.
Concerns can be raised confidentially or anonymously through our independently operated Speak Up helpline, available in multiple languages. Reports are reviewed by our compliance and ethics teams, with investigations carried out alongside senior management where appropriate.
We do not tolerate retaliation against anyone who raises a concern in good faith. Lessons learned are used to strengthen our policies, training, and due diligence processes.
Due diligence
Due diligence is our first line of defence in mitigating potential risks when working with third parties.
We recognise our responsibilities to work with suppliers that respect International Labour Organisation conventions and ensure that they share our values and operate in a manner consistent with Our Code, in their dealings with us and within their own supply chains. Our approach is informed by the United Nations Global Compact and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
We carry out due diligence checks through external expertise relating to our third parties, identifying competence, compliance with our values, policies and standards and to understand how they are addressing slavery and human trafficking risks.
Following appointment, key supplier review meetings take place to monitor performance against agreed metrics and identify any development or improvement opportunities, including in relation to modern slavery. Through these meetings, we communicate our expectations, monitor performance, and address any issues in accordance with Our Code.
Risk management
Risk Overview: The risks associated with slavery and human trafficking in our operations are low.
Our modern slavery risks are broadly divided into the following categories of supply chains:
- Facilities Management (FM) staff (cleaning, janitorial, security, etc.) in our 140 offices across the world.
- Organisations providing resources or services to support the delivery of our business, such as suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPE), office supplies, catering organisations, accommodation and travel companies
- Office equipment manufacturers, such as furniture and laptops.
The above groups can be further subdivided into labour that is:
- Directly employed (where a company in the Mott MacDonald Group is the contracting party).
- Sub-contracted, where we employ a service agency who is the contracting party.
- Associated labour, whereby our joint venture (JV) partners are the contracting party, or they sub-contract to agencies to provide labour.
The highest risks for Mott MacDonald Group are in relation to:
- Outsourced low wage jobs, such as office cleaners, drivers and support staff.
- Our commodity purchasing supply chain e.g. personal protective equipment, IT equipment, office furniture, tea and coffee, where unskilled labour is prevalent.
- The construction related supply chains of our partners and clients around the world.
- Working with JVs and sub-contractors.
- Staff untrained in recognising the signs of modern slavery.
- Failure to report and investigate suspected modern slavery issues.
Our people: We deem the risk of modern slavery or human trafficking occurring within Mott MacDonald's direct employee population to be low. Nevertheless, we take steps to help ensure our business and employees are protected from modern slavery or human trafficking risks.
We employ individuals through a transparent recruitment process, whether they are employees or contract staff. This seeks to confirm individuals share our corporate values, have a right to be employed for a specific job, are not breaching immigration regulations; have the necessary competence and aptitude for the position and are applying to work for us through their own free will.
Our Conditions of Employment set out the general terms and conditions of employment applicable to personnel who are recruited by a Group company or branch office. We operate in accordance with local laws and regulations relating to working conditions. We are also committed to having fair employment policies in accordance with local standards and cultures.
Our supply chain: We seek to ensure that our purchasing practices do not create pressure on our suppliers that could lead to modern slavery, for example, by avoiding aggressive pricing that does not consider production costs, late payments or imposing unfair penalties.
We prohibit the charging of recruitment or employment fees to workers by our suppliers, subcontractors, or their labour agents. No worker in our supply chain should bear any recruitment-related costs or make any payment to secure employment.
In addition, we require all suppliers to adhere to our human rights and modern slavery policy as set out in our supplier code of conduct.
Our risks related to modern slavery vary between the countries and sectors we work in. We use a suite of modern slavery country risk assessments, which enables the business to assess the level of likelihood and severity of modern slavery risks, using the Global Slavery Index alongside factors such as the sector and region.
We have produced guidance for our project managers and office managers to help them identify key areas of risk and to implement appropriate control measures to mitigate the risks.
Training and awareness on slavery and human trafficking available to our staff
Our staff are trained in, Our Code, ethics and compliance, and the Group Business Integrity policy, confirming that they will comply with the respective provisions.
We have developed a training module for modern slavery, which is available to all staff, and is designed to build understanding of what modern slavery is, who is affected, and how to spot the signs, including risks related to debt bondage and ethical recruitment, thereby strengthening staff awareness and capacity to identify potential concerns.
Our Code is available to our suppliers and on our external website to highlight our value, standards and expectations, including modern slavery and human rights, and how to raise concerns related to this. We include modern slavery training material in the mandatory learning that all staff who work outside the office are required to complete.
We make use of dilemmas to help staff understand some of the issues they might encounter. These scenario-based discussions help staff think through what they might do in a specific situation.
Effectiveness of our processes, including our key performance indicators
We undertake internal audits to verify compliance with our own business processes and are externally verified by third party organisations for compliance with ISO standards where relevant.
Since 2022 we have been partnering with the international social enterprise Slave Free Alliance to support us in our approach and action plan to mitigate the risk of modern slavery.
Our programme of work is informed by the gap analysis conducted by the Slave Free Alliance in 2023. In FY25 we have focused on strengthening the modern slavery element of our due diligence questionnaire and supplier performance assessments.
We have set metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to tackling modern slavery. We continue to monitor our performance, as well as the need for additional metrics, to drive improvements across our operations and supply chain. To ensure that low numbers of reports are not due to lack of awareness of Speak Up or modern slavery, we continue to promote our reporting mechanisms, both as part of Our Code and wider communications to the business and review our training programme. For FY25, the training completion rate on Our Code was 99%.
Our approach to modern slavery governance is led by Mott MacDonald's Sustainability team. Within this team, the Group Social Responsibility Manager leads our ongoing plan to strengthen the company's response to modern slavery and other social impact priorities. The team works with Legal, Procurement, and HR as needed to align to due diligence, supplier engagement, and training, and oversees the continuous improvement of our policies, systems, and reporting processes to reflect evolving best practice.
This statement was approved by the Executive Board of Mott MacDonald.