How we reward our people

Financial reward is part of the overall deal for our people and supports recruitment and retention for all our diverse talent groups. Investment in reward has to be competitive, fair and sustainable for the business. Decisions in investment each year are made within the context of past and predicted business performance. We believe being transparent about pay is an important way to build trust within our business, so below you’ll find some information on our approach to reward for our people, partners and Management Board.

To make sure our approach is fair for our people, we have a number of reward policies and principles:

• Transparent about opportunities and decision making

  • We are open and transparent in how we make reward and promotion decisions, including year end reward briefings.

• A Fair Deal

  • We are committed to equal opportunities for all, including a commitment to Equal Pay. We are explicit that pay decisions must not directly or indirectly take into account an individual’s gender, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, social mobility, marital status, pregnancy, parental/ paternity/maternity leave, or disability. Our five point action plan sets out the steps we’re taking to deliver an inclusive culture in the firm and the areas we’re focusing on for the greatest impact. In addition to monitoring equal pay and reporting on our pay gaps, we measure our progress against this action plan on a quarterly basis and share this with our Partner and Staff Diversity Councils.

  • Our comprehensive benefits package (called Total Benefits), including both our Exchange scheme and Benefits Plus, is designed to cover all the essentials and much more and to give choice and allow planning for the unexpected. The package grows with an individual's career, but our core and firmwide benefits offer a comprehensive package of benefits from day one of joining the firm. This includes support for individuals, family members and planning for the unexpected. 

  • We are a Real Living Wage Employer, paying the London or Regional Living Wage rate.

• Alignment to market, business and individual performance

  • We carry out annual reward benchmarking to monitor our pay, bonus and total reward proposition to reflect the diverse roles and skills of our people and the different markets we operate in. 

  • We reward for role, skills and market via base pay. All our employees have the opportunity to progress which is reflected in both in-grade pay progression and promotion opportunities, aligning to both business need and individual performance / capabilities. This aligns to our annual review of pay and progression (including promotion and our annual bonus awards) in July. 

  • We reward past business and individual performance through our annual bonus plan. The bonus pool will increase or decrease in any individual year to reflect the change in profitability for that year. 

  • Individual performance and contribution is assessed against goals (the ‘what’) and the evolved PwC Professional and values (the ‘how’).