Progress against our diversity targets

In 2016, we were in the first group of organisations to sign up to the Women in Finance Charter[1]. The Charter looks to increase the representation of women in the financial services sector, particularly at senior levels.

In line with the Charter, we set targets for our senior leadership team (SLT) for gender parity (50%) by 2025. At the same time, we set targets to improve senior representation for minority ethnic individuals, initially targeting 13% representation in our SLT by 2025.

SLT includes heads of department, directors, executive directors, the chief executive and the chair.

Our representation targets

After reviewing progress against our targets in 2021, we expanded our gender and ethnicity targets beyond our SLT and introduced targets at manager, technical specialist, lead and senior associate levels.

Improving diversity at these levels is vital, not least because individuals in these roles are the pipeline for our future senior leadership.

Our target for women remains at 50% and applies to all grades.

Our 2025 SLT ethnicity target is 20% and is 25% for minority ethnic representation across all other grades.

We acknowledge that lived experience and career progression is not the same across all minority ethnic groups. We’re particularly aware of a lack of black leaders in senior roles in financial services.

Our own data shows slower career progression for black individuals at the FCA. We’ve committed to increasing black representation at SLT level, targeting 4% SLT black representation within our target for 2025.

We use headcount as the basis of our reporting on diversity data and progress against targets.

Our progress

Female representation

When we signed the Women in Finance Charter in 2016, our female SLT representation was 39%. At the time of reporting for our 2021/22 Annual Diversity Report[2], our SLT female representation had risen to 45.2%. 

In the last year (April 2023 to March 2024), we’ve seen further progress towards our 2025 target:

• 49.7% of our SLT identified as female on 31 March 2024 
• the figure excluding the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is 49.7%

We continue to make progress towards our pipeline grade targets. On 31 March 2024: 

• 43.7% of the manager population is female
• 31.5% of the technical specialist population is female
• 49.4% of the lead/senior associate population is female
• the figures excluding the PSR are 43%, 32.3% and 49.4% respectively

This represents:

• an increase of 0.7 percentage points for SLT
• no change at manager level
• a small decrease of 0.2 percentage points for technical specialists
• a 1 percentage point increase for lead/senior associates

Minority ethnic representation

Our minority ethnic SLT representation has slightly increased over the last year. 

• 14% of SLT is from a minority ethnic background as of 31 March 2024, up from 13.9% in 2023. The figure as of 31 March 2024 excluding the PSR is 13.9%.
• Our black SLT representation has also increased, with 2.5% of the population identifying as black as of 31 March 2024, up from 1.3% in 2023. The figure as of 31 March 2024 excluding the PSR is 2%. 

We’ve seen increases for all pipeline grades:

• 15.3% to 18.3% at manager level
• 18.3% to 21.9% at technical specialist level 
• 31.7% to 32.8% at lead/senior associate level 
• the figures excluding the PSR are 18.7%, 22.3% and 33.1% respectively

Minority ethnic SLT representation can fluctuate at some levels, given the size of the population.

Reporting on our targets

We have seen increases in female and minority ethnic representation at most grades over the past year. However, we need to do more to meet our 2025 targets, and our DEI programme[3] supports these ambitions.

The tables below provide data for female and minority ethnic representation since 2018. As more colleagues share their personal data with us, which is applied retrospectively, historic data will vary slightly compared to our previous publications. 

Diversity of our Board and executive management

Our Board

We’ve published final rules[4] promoting transparency on the diversity of listed companies’ boards and executive management. Alongside this, companies must disclose the breakdown of diversity by sex or gender and ethnicity for their boards and executive management level.

In line with these requirements, we’re also reporting on the diversity of our Board. As of 31 March 2024:

• 40% of our Board are women (4 out of 10 directors are female)
• 20% of our Board is from a minority ethnic background (2 out of 10 directors are from a minority ethnic background)
• none of our senior Board positions (chair, chief executive or senior independent director) are held by women***

*** The 'chief finance' senior management function[5] is allocated to the chief operating officer (COO). The COO is not a Board director position but is a member of our Executive Committee[6] (ExCo). This position is held by a woman.

Most of our Board members are appointed by the Treasury, along with the Secretary of State as appropriate. They are recruited in line with the public appointments process, a principle of which is that appointments should reflect the society in which we live. 

The Bank of England’s deputy governor for prudential regulation and the chair of the Payment Systems Regulator are also Board members.

Succession planning remains a regular key agenda item for the Board and its committees. As part of this, they also consider our diversity and inclusion objectives. To identify gaps and inform the Treasury on future appointments, our People Committee monitors:

• the balance and composition of the Board and Board committees
• Board members’ skills and experience

Our Executive Committee (ExCo)

Sustaining meaningful progress in the diversity of our ExCo is part of our wider objective to improve representation of women and ethnic minorities in our SLT.

Our ExCo diversity representation figures as of 31 March 2024 were:

• 55.5% of our ExCo are women (5 out of 9 of our ExCo members are female)
• 33.3% of our ExCo are from a minority ethnic background (3 out of 9 of our ExCo members are from a minority ethnic background), of whom 11.1% are black (1 out of 9 of our ExCo members is black)
• 11.1% of our ExCo identify as gay/lesbian (1 out of 9 ExCo members)
• 11.1% of our ExCo have a disability (1 out of 9 ExCo members)

We ask a question on the occupation of the main household earner when employees were aged about 14. The Social Mobility Commission recommends this as the best measure to assess someone’s socio-economic background. 

• 55.5% of our ExCo are from a professional background or higher socio-economic background (5 out of 9 ExCo members).
• 33.3% of our ExCo are from a working class or lower socio-economic background (3 out of 9 ExCo members).
• 11.1% of our ExCo responded other such as: retired, this question does not apply to me, I don’t know (1 out of 9 ExCo members).