PwC makes further reductions to ethnic pay gap

PwC has announced that its ethnic pay gap for black, asian and mixed ethnic (BAME) employees including partners has decreased from 6.3% in FY19 to 3.5% in FY20.

The company has published for the first time its BAME 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 reportedly part of a wider “ongoing action plan” designed to address diversity in the workplace.

The median firm wide gender pay gap also dropped from 14.7% in FY19 to 11.6% in FY20.

New data from detailed ethnicity pay gaps showed the median black pay gap was 8.3%, median Asian pay gap was 2.7% and the median mixed ethnic background pay gap was 2.2%.

Kevin Ellis, chairman and senior partner, PwC UK, said: “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.

Looking to the future, PwC revealed it 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 partners and the proportion of black students hired by 2025.

Laura Hinton, executive board member and chief people officer, said: “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.”