I am unable to find a button in toolbar to highlight in Pages

You will find the true Highlight feature as you are accustomed to in Word, hidden in Pages in the following location:

For years, I have requested that Apple make this a toolbar item where Word users would have no difficulty finding it, but I have turned cyanotic trying to achieve those improvements. Apple is fixated on placing an Insert menu > Highlight item that has nothing to do with proper industry text highlights.

You will find a long list of Word features that have no counterpart in Pages as Apple has no intent on making Pages a Word clone.

umm.. any particular button you're looking for?