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Social mobility
Social mobility is a major issue for our country and our economy. Someone’s future should be determined by their talent and determination. But, for too many people around the UK, that's unfortunately not the case.
The issues related to social mobility are complex, and the solutions are many and varied. But businesses have a major role to play in advancing social mobility and in being part of the solution to this important problem. As major employers and as influencers on the society we serve, business has the power to effect positive change.
At PwC, we've always had a focus on social mobility we're ranked as the top UK employer in the 2019 Social Mobility Employer Index. We ensure that our recruitment processes for school leavers, graduates and experienced hires promote social mobility and enable access for all.
We’re active in our communities, raising skills and aspirations that will help people to be more aware of the world of work and more successful within it, whether at PwC or elsewhere.
Through our PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club we also provide a range of training and development support to social enterprises, who we know are often run by, and serve, some of the most disadvantaged communities across the UK.
And we’re helping to celebrate those people and organisations that are making a difference by advancing social mobility through our sponsorship of the UK Social Mobility Awards.
Our 5 point social mobility action plan
This is our five year plan to help advance social mobility by focussing on raising aspiration, access and awareness.
Help 25,000 young people to develop workplace skills through our programmes with schools and colleges across the UK, with a particular focus on the social mobility coldspot areas.
Provide paid work experience places for at least 1,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds
Give 100 young people a year across the UK the chance to develop in-demand technology skills and training, with no tuition fees, through our technology degree and data science graduate apprenticeships with the universities of Birmingham, Queen’s (Belfast) Edinburgh, St Andrews and Leeds.
Be a cornerstone employer in Bradford and support the government’s social mobility agenda.
Support the development and skills training of 250 social enterprises across the country and commit to spending at least ten million pounds through our supply chain with social enterprises
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Our social mobility strategy
PwC is a place where everyone can succeed, regardless of their background. We've created a Social Mobility team and developed a five-year social mobility strategy, which focuses on Recruitment, Progression, Community and Advocacy and sets out ambitious targets for how we'll change our activities to further support social mobility in the years ahead.
What is social mobility?
It's about your past not determining your future. Equality of opportunity. Making the most of your talent.
Research suggests that people born into a background of disadvantage face significant difficulties in overcoming barriers that exist through no fault of their own, with lower educational and employment outcomes as a result. For example:
- In the last ten years, 500,000 children from poorer backgrounds were not considered to be school-ready at the age of five;
- Only 1 in 3 children from poorer families reach the expected standard in English, Reading and Maths by age 11;
- In the last five years, 1.2 million 16 year-olds left school without 5 good GCSEs;
- 18 year-olds from better-off families are twice as likely to go to university, and six times more likely to go to a selective university;
- Graduates from poorer families earn 10% less than their peers from wealthier families;
- People from working-class backgrounds are significantly under-represented at the top levels of industry, politics and even sport.
But why should PwC care about social mobility? And what can PwC do to help solve this important societal problem?
Social mobility matters to PwC. We're a people business and we want the best people to work for us, wherever they come from. Our work and our people will be better for being informed by diverse insights and experiences.
Recruitment
We provide a number of routes into PwC and we’re continually innovating, to increase the opportunities people have to work for us.
In 2015 we removed UCAS points from the majority of our graduate and undergraduate opportunities. We’ve strengthened our School Leaver programme and offer formal paid work experience to year 12 students. We have our Flying Start university programme and our Technology Degree Apprenticeship and Data Science Graduate Apprenticeships for those who want a traditional university experience and to launch their career at the same time.
We’ve recently launched our new student recruitment selection process which helps to remove unconscious bias including removing ‘past-focused’ questioning that favours candidates from more privileged backgrounds.
Over the next five years, we will:
- Increase our formal work experience programme, aiming to provide paid work experience for at least 1,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in the next five years through our Business Insight Week and Digital Insight Week programmes;
- Work with young people in at least 25 of the social mobility local authority coldspots identified by the Social Mobility Commission, to raise their awareness of business and their aspirations of what they can achieve;
- Seek to increase the number of applications and hires from people with disadvantaged backgrounds. Our aim is that, by 2022, 15% of our hires will be from a Free School Meals background, to ensure our annual intake is representative of the broader school population.
We're a member of The 5% Club, an industry led initiative focussed on driving momentum into the recruitment of apprentices, graduates and sponsored students. The 5% Club is a movement of more than 250 employers providing ‘earn and learn’ opportunities to develop the skills and talents people need to become more employable and create meaningful careers. We currently have 20% of our workforce on formal earn and learn programmes through our graduate, undergraduate and school leaver programmes. We're proud to showcase our commitment and act as an advocate for this cause by joining the club.
Progression
Joining is one thing. Staying and succeeding is another.
We’ve worked hard to ensure that PwC is an open, inclusive working environment, where everyone is treated with an open mind, recognised and rewarded for their hard work and given equal opportunities to grow, develop and progress within the business.
We'll be tracking the performance and progression of our employees from disadvantaged backgrounds much more closely in the years ahead. As the tangible symbol of who progresses the furthest within our partnership structure, we'll aim to report on the proportion of our Partners who tell us that they received Free School Meals.
Community
Social mobility goes to the heart of our purpose as a firm, which is to build trust in society and solve important problems. Tackling social mobility has to go further than just what we do as a responsible employer – it must also include what we do as a responsible business.
We have a longstanding community programme, which this year delivered over 80,000 hours of volunteering and supported almost 20,000 beneficiaries across our focus areas of education and enterprise.
We also support social enterprise through our own social enterprise hub, the Fire Station, and our social enterprise restaurant Brigade, which is achieving a significant social impact and a positive Social Return on Investment.
In addition, we've outlined our support for supporting social mobility across the UK by becoming a Department for Education Skills Partner, a member of the Social Mobility Business Partnership and a signatory to the Social Mobility Pledge.
Over the next five years, we will:
- Help 25,000 young people to develop workplace skills through our programmes with schools and colleges across the UK;
- Support the development of 250 social enterprises through our UK-wide PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club, which offers mentoring, training, skills development and supply chain opportunities;
- Enable social enterprises to access our supply chain – as part of the SEUK Buy Social Corporate Challenge, we’ve committed to increase our spend with social enterprises and we’re aiming to spend at least £10 million with social enterprises by 2022;
- Ensure that our community programme impacts beneficiaries in at least 25 of the English social mobility local authority coldspots identified by the Social Mobility Commission;
- Support the Government’s flagship Opportunity Areas programme by being one of the initiative’s cornerstone employers, focusing on developing the employability prospects of young people in Bradford.
Advocacy
Social mobility is a problem that no single organisation can tackle alone. So it’s therefore vital that we collaborate with others, share our good practice and use our convening power to spread the messages about the importance of increased social mobility:
- We are a founder member of Access Accountancy, a collaboration of employers and professional bodies that is working to improve access to the accountancy profession for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds;
- We are a Living Wage employer – we’ve paid the London Living Wage for our on-site staff, including our suppliers, since 2006, and in 2008 we introduced a regional living wage, to ensure we also paid above the minimum wage outside of London;
- We publish a social mobility scorecard which publicly highlights our social mobility performance across all our focus areas of recruitment, progression, community and advocacy, and will be part of the PwC Annual Report;
- We're ranked as the top UK employer in the 2019 Social Mobility Employer Index. And we’re continuing our sponsorship of the UK Social Mobility Awards, which are designed to celebrate those people and organisations that are doing their bit to improve social mobility.
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