IFoA publish UK baseline socio-economic diversity survey results

02 December 2022

The IFoA has published the City of London’s Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce survey results for our UK members.

Socio-economic diversity can be a hidden or even invisible characteristic in the workplace. For this reason, data gathering is critical to enable organisations to measure diversity and for any progress to be made.

The Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce conducted a survey to establish a socio-economic background baseline for UK financial and professional services. The survey took place from October 2021 to March 2022 and received 9,500 responses from 49 organisations. The Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce has now published an action plan based on this and other research to tackle the lack of socio-economic diversity at the top of UK financial and professional services.

Over 1,242 UK-based IFoA members took part in the survey, contributing data that will provide an essential starting point for lasting change in the financial and professional services sectors. 

The report highlights that the UK actuarial profession performs slightly less well than wider the financial and professional services sector in the socio-economic diversity of its members and senior leadership. This has given a renewed sense of urgency to work already underway to deliver equitable access to the actuarial profession.

The IFoA will review the City of London Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce’s recently published report, which includes recommendations on how regulators, sector bodies and government can support and incentivise employer action on this journey. The IFoA is currently developing an action plan to support the report’s recommendations.

Read the survey results

The IFoA’s socio-economic baseline survey results are now available to download and read (PPTX, 918KB)

You can find out more about the IFoA’s work to ensure access to the profession is fair and equitable in our Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy.