London receptionist claims she was refused work at UBS after she declined to wear a skirt and heels

The woman says she was told that she would need to wear a black skirt and black high heeled shoes to work every day

Jo Beattie went for an interview for a temporary job working on the front desk of UBS

A woman claims she was refused a job on the front desk of an investment bank because she was not prepared to wear a skirt and high heels.

Jo Beattie went for an interview for a temporary job working on the front desk of the Swiss bank UBS on London Liverpool Street.

At the end of the interview with Hamilton Mayday, the recruitment agency working to fill the role, Ms Beattie said she was told that she would need to wear a black skirt and black high heeled shoes to work every day.

She claims the interviewer said the only instance when flats are allowed is if a candidate has a medical issue that prevents them from wearing heels.

Ms Beattie said she did not have a medical condition, but she was not prepared to wear high heels as she didn’t feel it was necessary to carry out the work.

Beattie said she did not have a medical condition, but she was not prepared to wear high heels as she didn’t feel it was necessary to carry out the work (Jo Beattie)

Ms Beattie claims she was then told she would not be offered the position.

Following publication of this article, a spokesperson for Hamilton Mayday said: “The claim is simply untrue; as a company we do not specify high heels or skirts for females and the candidate was not interviewing for a role at UBS. This was a Hamilton Mayday screening process for a number of corporate reception roles. We are extremely disappointed that this is being misrepresented and could cause potential damage to our reputation.”

UBS declined to comment.

“UBS is one of the largest financial organisations in the world and for them to be insisting that their female front of house staff wear high heels and skirts is nothing short of outrageous,” Ms Beattie said.

“It is unbelievable that this kind of behaviour is still commonplace in the corporate world,” she added.

Ms Beattie’s story comes after Nicola Gavins, a waitress in Canada, posted a photo on Facebook showing a waitress’s bleeding feet after she was forced to work a shift in high heels.

The post has been shared over 12,000 times.

In a separate incident Nicola Thorpe, a London receptionist, was sent home from consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers for refusing to wear shoes with a 2- to 4-inch heel.

Nicola Thorp turned up at PwC last December in flat shoes, but was told she had to have a two to four inch heel (BBC News)

Ms Thorp said her job involved a nine-hour shift escorting clients to meeting rooms and that she couldn’t do that in high heels.

“I said 'if you can give me a reason as to why wearing flats would impair me to do my job today, then fair enough', but they couldn't,” Ms Thorp told BBC Radio London.

Gaenor Bagley, executive board member and head of people at PwC, said the incident was “embarrassing”.

“We took immediate action with the contractor that employed Ms Thorp. Put simply, such policies don’t reflect who we are,” Ms Bagley said.

Thorp took action herself by setting up a change.org petition to make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work. The petition has received more than 100,000 signatures, meaning that parliament must consider it for a debate.

Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, said: “No woman should be forced to wear high heels. Responsible employers shouldn't need the law to tell them that.”