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Freshfields publishes UK pay gap data on social mobility, gender, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (‘Freshfields’) has today published its 2022 UK pay gap report, which includes firm data on gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and for the first time, socio-economic background.
Freshfields has published its gender pay gap since 2017 and, on a voluntary basis, its ethnicity pay gap since 2018. For the third consecutive year it has also included data on its disability and sexual orientation pay gaps, as part of its wider ongoing commitment to improving diversity and inclusion in the firm across all dimensions.
For the first time, the firm is reporting on socio-economic background, in line with research showing how socio-economic background (or social mobility) can affect access to the legal profession, people’s sense of belonging and rate of progression. This year’s ‘baseline’ of the firm’s social mobility pay gap will, along with other dimensions of diversity, help direct Freshfields’ strategy going forward.
Highlighted throughout the report are active steps taken by the firm to work towards global targets, evolve diversity and inclusion efforts and reduce any gaps, and continuing to evolve firm policies, including publishing new D&I time recording codes and running targeted talent programmes.
Freshfields’ mean overall gender pay gap (including partners) for 2022 slightly increased to 53.2% (from 52.1% in 2021) and the median overall gender pay gap increased to 14.8% (12.5% in 2021). For employees the mean gender pay gap increased to 7.6% while the median decreased to 0%.
The overall ethnicity pay gap (including partners) increased compared to 2021, with a mean pay gap of 55.9% (from 50.5% in 2021), and a median pay gap of 10.8% (from 7.3% in 2021). The pay gap is driven by the proportionately relatively small number of partners self-identifying as being from an ethnic minority and higher representation in more junior roles. For employees the mean ethnicity pay gap increased to 6.3% while the median decreased to 0.9%. Our ethnicity pay gap data comes solely from individuals who voluntarily choose to share their diversity data. The firm has been working to increase the response rate over the past few years, which, for those included in this report, has increased again this year to 95% (from 91% in 2021).
This is the third year that the firm has reported disability pay gaps for its employees and partners, and figures show a mean pay gap of 8.8%, a significant decrease from 52.5% the previous year, and a median pay gap of 0% for this group. Sexual orientation pay gap figures show a mean pay gap of -2.8% and a median pay gap of 9.6%.
The firm’s socio-economic background pay gap reporting uses the same overall methodology as our gender report. The firm analysed the pay gap between three groups of parental background: ‘professional’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘lower socio-economic’. As set out in the report, there are pay gaps between each group, with the pay gap favouring professional compared to intermediate and lower socio-economic backgrounds. There is a median gap in favour of lower socio-economic backgrounds compared to intermediate backgrounds. These pay gaps, like others, are driven by the distribution of colleagues across different types of roles, and across different levels of seniority.
London Managing Partner Claire Wills commented: “We continue to focus on driving measurable change and ensure transparency as part of our diversity and inclusion commitments. I’m particularly pleased that this year we are including pay gap figures on socio-economic backgrounds, which is a key priority for the firm in our global strategy. Our UK colleagues have shown great engagement, and we have worked in partnership with clients and the broader community on multiple efforts, which we believe will help us eliminate pay gaps over the longer term.”
In addition to Freshfields’ five-year D&I commitments and targets, examples of action to drive change include:
- Publishing our first report on our progress towards diversity and inclusion targets and commitments;
- Introducing new diversity and inclusion time codes for our lawyers to recognise the importance of the time spent on D&I activity;
- Ongoing work to broaden access to the legal profession including the Aspiring Professionals Programme and Stephen Lawrence Scholarship programme;
- Launching our global Future Leaders Programme for ethnically diverse colleagues with strong representation from UK colleagues and partners;
- Continued engagement for our Global Reverse Mentoring Programme from leaders and colleagues in the UK;
- Increasing support for colleagues through evolved people policies, including the introduction of agile working, enhanced family leave policies and family forming benefits and;
- Achieving Mansfield Rule UK Certification Plus, which focuses on increasing the representation of historically underrepresented lawyers, particularly in leadership roles, including women, lawyers with disabilities, LGBTQ+ lawyers and those from ethnic minority groups.
Notes to editors: As there is currently no guidance on how to publish ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and socio-economic background data, the same criteria for gender pay gap reporting have been used.