15 November

The Social Mobility Employer Index 2023

The 2023 Social Mobility Foundation’s Employer Index has recently been released. The Index is a celebration of organisations making progress in creating an inclusive environment for people from low socio-economic backgrounds.

It also provides evidence-based recommendations for organisations supported by the views of young people from low socio-economic backgrounds.

This year, 143 organisations entered from the private, public and voluntary sectors and we are pleased to see many of our corporate partners are on 2023’s list of the top 75 employers.

Congratulations to our corporate partners who made the list or entered this year:

PwC UK, Linklaters, DLA Piper, Phoenix Group, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Schroders, Fidelity International and Barclays PLC.

Topping the list this year, are PWC, a long-standing member of our Power of Inclusion Senior Leadership Forum and an organisation that have been consistent in their commitment to supporting our work around social mobility at The Lord Mayor’s Appeal. To achieve first place on the index is an accolade they can rightly be proud of.

A section of this year’s report explored how well organisations reach out to young people from low socio-economic backgrounds to ensure early career opportunities are more widely accessible. PwC have shown commitment to this area of work by offering schools outreach programmes, which Sarah Churchman spoke about at a Power of Inclusion workshop earlier this year.

This year’s Index explored how entrants are collecting and using socioeconomic background data:

‘While 83.2% of entrants conduct an annual diversity survey, including questions on socioeconomic background, only 77.3% collect three or more data points for current employees. For new hires, the figure is 71.2%. Completion rates for these questions were mixed, with some close to 100% and some as low as 10%.’

Slaughter and May achieved 19^th place on the list this year and we look forward to hearing from them at our upcoming Power of Inclusion workshop on Thursday 30 November where Partner, Jane Edwarde, will deliver a keynote speech exploring the collection and analysis of socioeconomic background data. Jane will cover the organisation’s experience as the first major law firm to set Social Mobility targets and the comprehensive action plan backing this.

We would also like to congratulate Grant Thornton UK LLP for chieving 3^rd place on this year’s Index. Tabitha Hutton, Inclusion & Diversity Manager at Grant Thornton will also be delivering a keynote speech at the upcoming Power of Inclusion exploring the belonging strand of the organisation’s social mobility strategy.

Other highlights from this year’s Index, include the response of many employers to the cost-of-living crisis. During the recruitment process ‘52.4% pay for travel to interviews and 32.9% pay for accommodation’. The report also finds that 14% of entrants measure their class pay gap and entrants are encouraged to begin measuring this and commit to closing it if not there yet. The majority (75%) of entrants this year have returned following previous entries for further insights into what they can do to strengthen their work.

We look forward to hopefully seeing many more new entrants to the Social Mobility Index next year.

Entering the Social Mobility Index each year is a valuable tool for your organisation to regularly review the progress of your social mobility strategy.

Check out the full report here on the Social Mobility website

Learn more about Power of Inclusion here