PwC UK publishes Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnic Background pay gaps as part of action on inclusion and diversity

PwC UK has today for the first time published its Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnic Background pay gaps in the third instalment of the firm’s FY20 Annual Review. The disclosure, made in addition to the voluntary publication of the firm’s overall ethnicity pay gap for the past four years, is part of a wider ongoing action plan designed to address diversity in the workplace. 

PwC UK’s overall median ethnicity pay gap including partners has decreased from 6.3% in FY19 to 3.5% in FY20. The median firmwide gender pay gap decreased from 14.7% in FY19 to 11.6% in FY20. 

New data from detailed ethnicity pay gaps - Whole PwC UK firm (partners and staff)

• Median Black pay gap is 8.3%;
  
• Median Asian pay gap is 2.7%;
  
• Median Mixed Ethnic Background pay gap is 2.2%.

Kevin Ellis, Chairman and Senior Partner, PwC UK, comments:

“It’s clear from this detailed data that we haven’t yet solved pay gaps but it does demonstrate our commitment to focusing on inclusion in the widest sense possible. We still have work to do to achieve better representation especially at the most senior levels of our business and that is our priority.” 

The pay gaps, which differ from equal pay, are predominantly driven by lower representation of female and ethnic minority employees in the highest paid positions, and there is a targeted, data-driven action plan in place to improve this. Actions include a focus on career sponsorship for high potential female and ethnic minority staff, the use of technology for fair work allocation, and senior level accountability through recognising partners who make a positive contribution to diversity targets. 

An action plan focused specifically on ethnicity was also introduced in the summer of 2020 to build on existing policies. This includes a dedicated PwC fund set up to give Black-led social enterprises, as well as charities with ethnic minority beneficiaries, access to finance, mentoring, networks and skills. 

Laura Hinton, Executive Board member and Chief People Officer, comments:

“Being transparent with our diversity data is central to our goals of improving representation across our firm and nurturing an inclusive workplace culture for our people. I’m pleased we’re able to share a more detailed breakdown of our ethnicity pay gaps and we see this as an important driver of action and accountability as we focus on our efforts to reach true equality within the workplace.” 

Looking to the future, PwC has set stretching new targets for gender and ethnic minority representation across all grades from associate to partner by 2025. These targets include doubling the number of Black partners¹ and the proportion of Black students hired by 2025. Information on representation of female and ethnic minority staff at each grade is also published in the Annual Review.  

PwC was one of the first UK organisations to voluntarily publish its gender pay gap in 2014,  before it was made compulsory in 2018, and was the first professional services firm to voluntarily publish its ethnicity pay gap.

Research from PwC shows that an increasing number of UK employers are calculating their ethnicity pay gaps, as companies await the government’s response to its consultation on mandating ethnicity pay gap reporting for UK businesses. The research shows that the percentage of companies calculating their ethnicity pay gap rose from 5% in 2018 to 23% in 2020 and that almost half of the businesses surveyed plan to disclose their ethnicity pay gap in the next three years. 

Additional diversity data from PwC’s FY20 Annual Review

• 35% of PwC’s new hires in FY20 were from an ethnic minority background, 41% were female;
• 22% of PwC’s partners are female; 
• 10% of PwC’s partners are from an ethnic minority background;
• Ethnic minorities make up 25% of PwC’s overall workforce, up 2% from FY19. 

Ends.

Notes to editors

• ¹ All of PwC UK’s partners are equity partners. 
• More information on PwC UK’s pay gap data can be found in the FY20 Annual Review
• PwC UK’s detailed breakdown of its ethnicity pay gaps can be found here
• This year PwC has focused on the median pay gaps, as this is increasingly the format used by the Office of National Statistics and the majority of reporting companies. We continue to report on our mean pay gaps and you can find a comprehensive account of PwC’s diversity data in our Diversity Pay Report. This includes all figures including mean and median pay and bonus gaps,  regulatory (excluding partners) and non-regulatory (including partners) disclosures.