Nearly 75% of PwC recruits now state educated
PwC, the largest private sector recruiter of graduates in the UK, has increased its intake of employees from poorer backgrounds after removing A-level results from its selection criteria. The company abandoned the UCAS points system last May after discovering that one in three of its graduate recruits had been to private school. This year, three-quarters of PwC’s intake were state educated and almost 40% were the first in their family to gain a university degree. Analysis also showed women at the company earned 15% less than men during the year, moving to 3% less when adjusted for seniority.

Empowered flexibility

Hybrid working is reshaping our towns and cities. It is creating new operating models, and providing opportunities for localised growth and investment across the UK. We called on our previous investments in collaboration technologies, alliances and digital upskilling to adapt to this model wholeheartedly.

Importantly, our commitment to hybrid working means we’ve been able to service client requests directly through a workforce that is able to collaborate regardless of where it is based. Over the year, our client satisfaction scores increased to 9.11/10, up from 8.9/10 in 2021. We’ve also won some Awards along the way.

Our approach to empowered flexibility and initiatives such as summer working hours have landed well, generating our highest ever employee engagement score of 80%.

But we want to build on these gains in the longer term. We can now better tap into new and diverse talent pools across the country, and ensure that the people we employ and upskill reflect our clients. Taking a lead on transparency over the past five years has focussed our attention on the diversity of our employee base, while widening access to people from all socio-economic backgrounds.