Pay gap reporting - UK

This year, our annual report on pay gaps contains data on socio-economic background for the first time.

Each year, in order to build a better picture of our business we have expanded what we report on. This year, as well as adding socio-economic background we are including three-year trends across other areas.

Our overall combined gender pay gap for all UK partners and employees has fallen again this year. But, as we talk about in the report, breaking down our data into smaller groups by pay quartile and role type – where we have a population size big enough to do so – shows us more specifically where any gaps are occurring.

Pay Gap Reports provide a snapshot of historical data at a point in time, so it is important to view this in the context of our wider objectives in each area of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). We include key points from our action plans for each of these areas to show what we are doing to continue making progress against our objectives.

A summary is below – these figures are at 1 May 2022:

• Gender: 27% of our partnership in the UK are now women, up from 20% in 2018. At associate level it is 51%; trainees 53%; and business teams 67% women.
• Race and ethnicity: we are now at 24% Black and ethnic minority representation across legal and business teams in London, up from 19% in 2020 – therefore making good progress towards our target of 25% by 2025.
• For LGBTQ+, disability and socio-economic background, a focus has been on ensuring we increase the proportion of people who self-report (i.e. tell us how they identify) so that we have a good level of insight to inform the work we do. Reporting rates are up in all these groups this year, with our LGBTQ+ self-reporting now at 86%.
• Disability: reporting figures are now at 84%, with the proportion of colleagues who identify as having a disability growing from 3% to 6% since 2020. This shows that more people are comfortable telling us they have a disability, which means we can put the right support in place and understand different disabilities and conditions better.
• Socio-economic background: we now have a reporting rate of 61%, which gives us a good starting point to build on. This is a more complex area to define and measure but it is important we do, so that we can continue to make progress. We’re pleased to have moved up again in the Social Mobility Foundation Employer Index 2022 and are now ranked 13th – up from 24th last year.