Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Accountancy & Finance

Harvey John’s ebook on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is now published, the tax division wanted to thank all of the accountancy & finance professionals who contributed to our research earlier this year. 

Now that our ebook is published, we wanted to share a snapshot of the data we received from our accounting network with you.

We hope this quick rundown will stimulate more conversation around how we can improve best practices for DE&I within the accountancy and finance markets.

Let’s get to it.

The Breakdown

Think progression within the sector can be impacted by gender, race, disability, sexuality, ethnicity, age or class.

of tax respondents believe there’s a lack of diversity at Senior Management level & beyond at their organisation.

believe the sector is doing enough to increase diversity in their teams.

felt they’d been personally affected by diversity issues in the workplace.

of respondents noted that their current organisation has networks for minority groups.

Respondent Profile

The majority of respondents were at the Senior Manager grade (25%). This was followed by Managers (23%) then Associates / Analysts (21%). At the bottom were Heads of Division and Partners, together making up (6%) of respondents.

64% were White British. 

52% identified as middle class, whilst another 41%    considered themselves working class. Of all our specialist sectors, accountancy had the highest working class representation. 

49% of respondents were male, 48% were female, 1% were Non-Binary and 0.5% were Transgender. Across each specialist sector, this was the most balanced in terms of gender. 

8% of respondents reported having a disability. 

Going forward

We realise there is far more to unpick here but, based solely on figures, it is evident that although conversations have been taking place, there remains work to be done in the accountancy & finance sectors if it wants to achieve inclusivity.

It raises the question as to what needs to be done in the mid to short term to increase representation.

To explore our analysis of the accountancy & finance market in more detail, be sure to get your copy of Harvey John’s latest ebook on DE&I here.

Want to see how Accountancy & Finance compares?  Check out our Legal, Tax, and Treasury snapshots.