Over a quarter (26%) of the new partners are female, up from 19% last year. This takes the overall gender diversity of PwC UK’s partnership to 19.4%, a slight increase from 18.5% last year. The firm reports the pipeline of females coming through into senior roles is strong, accounting for 40% of the newly promoted directors.

Of the new partners, 17% are black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME), while 30% are based outside of London, which PwC says reflects its commitment to the regions.

Even though the promotions represent a diverse range of backgrounds, with more people who did not attend university, work on a part-time basis, or are from an ethnically-diverse background, the firm says there is still progress to be made to ensure the business is more representative.  

Laura Hinton, chief people officer at PwC, said: ‘While it’s encouraging to see that 26% of our new partners are female and 17% are BAME, progress is slower than we would like to shift the overall diversity of our partnership.

‘That’s why we’ve set a clear five-point action plan to accelerate our aim of achieving our gender and ethnicity targets. The plan includes changing our recruitment processes, how we allocate “career-defining” roles and increasing leadership accountability for reaching our diversity targets.’

Kevin Ellis, chairman and senior partner at PwC, said: ‘Our investment in new partners this year reflects the increasing demand from our clients for technology expertise, and for people with diverse thinking and industry experience.’

Report by Pat Sweet