The Diversity Project is a cross-company initiative championing a truly diverse and inclusive UK investment and savings industry with the right talent to deliver the best possible financial outcomes for our clients, to reflect the society we serve and ultimately build more sustainable businesses.
We currently have over 100 Member firms representing >£13 trillion AUM and over 85,000 employees in the industry. Our current members are asset owners, investment managers, fund selectors, investment consultants, actuaries, trustees, family offices and wealth managers. Our partners and supporters include data providers, recruiters, professional standards authorities, trade bodies, and other organisations within the financial services sector.
We cover 15 different dimensions of D,E,I including: Disability, Early Careers, Gender Equality, LGBTQ+, Menopause, Mental Health, Military Veterans, Neurodiversity, Race and Ethnicity, Returners, SMART Working, Social Mobility, #TalkAboutBlack, Working Families and the 50+ Resource Group.
The Diversity Project believes that D,E and I is a business imperative, and we strive to accelerate change in the industry. As mentioned above, we have many different workstreams who host events, create best practices, and resources for firms. For our five-year goals, we chose three of these aspects to focus on, Social Mobility being one of them.
Our five-year socioeconomic goals are as follows:
– All Member firms collect socio-economic data for their people, both entry-level and existing, and track promotions.
- All member firms to support one or more graduate/school leaver recruitment programmes focused on socio-economic diversity.
– At least 80% of interns and graduates must have attended state school for the duration of their secondary education (ages 11-16).
Last year, we ran a speaker series called Potential over polish, featuring high profile social mobility and diversity experts, including Matthew Syed and Andy Haldane.
This year, we’re launching a new speaker series: Levelling the Playing Field, in partnership with The Social Mobility Foundation and Progress Together – during this series, we will hear from their CEOs and other notable speakers. The intention is for this series to help Member firms to ‘move the dial’ in making progress on social mobility within their own organisations. While the series should raise awareness and provide inspiration, it is also grounded in the practical – helping attendees to benefit from the insights and experiences of those who have been successful, and providing actionable things that attendees can implement in their own firms. Success to us will be a meaningful improvement in the 2025 annual Goals and Progress statistics for Social Mobility.
The Levelling the Playing Field Speaker Series was announced on Social Mobility Day, alongside a Social Mobility Toolkit that our workstream put together, created to offer practical help and assistance to proactive organisations seeking to improve socio-economic diversity in the workplace. The toolkit featured some great case studies from some of our Member firms, such as HSBC Asset Management, AllianceBernstein, Newton Investment Management, and Browne Jacobson.
We also run the Diversity Project Goals and Progress tool which was launched to track and monitor our collective progress towards achieving our 5-year goals focussing on Social Mobility, Gender and Ethnicity. Developed by Diversity Project members, for members, it provides a joined-up approach to highlight where we are succeeding together and where more strategic focus is required. The tool also allows us to see the impact of the work the Diversity Project is doing, as this will be run annually. The data provided is confidential and we have facilitated that members can benchmark themselves privately against the aggregate results.
From last year’s survey results, we found that:
35% Member firms now collecting and monitoring SE DE&I, up 10% YoY.
30% Member firms committed to one goal. 27% to two goals, and only 4% committing to all three
1.9 → 4.8 Average social mobility actions being taken across firms
With these stats in mind, we have put together the 2024 social mobility strategy to move the dial, including our partnership with Progress Together.
