White prevalence in senior roles drives ethnicity and gender gap at PwC
PwC has for the first time published its Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnic background pay gaps, with the gap being driven by under representation of ethnic minorities in senior roles.
PwC’s overall median ethnicity pay gap, including partners, decreased from 6.3 per cent in 2019 to 3.5 per cent in 2020.
The firm’s median gender pay gap decreased from 14.7 per cent in 2019 to 11.6 per cent the year after.
Splitting the data further, the median Black pay gap at the firm was 8.3 per cent in 2020, the median Asian pay gap 2.7 per cent, and the median Mixed Ethnic Background pay gap was 2.2 per cent.
Writing exclusively for City PM, PwC UK chairman and senior partner Kevin Ellis said the ethnic pay gap was driven by under representation of ethnic minorities in senior roles at the organisation.
“Like many companies, we looked again at our existing efforts to tackle racial inequality following the events last summer,” he wrote.
“In times of intense scrutiny it can be tempting to abandon existing strategies and announce new measures in their place, but our experience has shown us that yes, it takes a long time to make a difference and that is frustrating, but these issues have been embedded for a long time, and long-term, sustainable changes do not happen as quickly as we could like them to.”
Just over a third (35%) of PwC’s 2020 new hires were from an ethnic minority background, and 41 per cent were female.
Just over one in five (22%) of PwC’s partners are female, and one in 10 (10%) are from an ethnic minority background.
Ethnic minorities make up a quarter (25%) of PwC’s overall workforce, up two per cent from 2019.
PwC has a target-driven action plan to improve both its gender and ethnic pay gaps.
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.
The Big Four firm also introduced an action plan focused specifically on ethnicity last summer, which included a dedicated fund set up to give Black-led social enterprises and charities with ethnic minority beneficiaries, access to finance, mentoring, networks and skills.