EY is the latest firm to publish it gender pay gap figures under new regulations that require companies with over 250 employees to publish their gender pay data.
The Big Four firm has reported its mean gender pay gap at 19.7% and its mean bonus pay gap at 43.5%. EY attributed these figures to the higher concentration of men in senior roles.
This is compared with Deloitte’s gender pay gap, revealed to be 18.2%, and PwC’s gender pay gap which stands at 13.7%.
EY has gone one step further than the regulation requires and has also revealed its mean ethnicity pay gap to be 17.3%, and mean ethnicity bonus gap to be 34.1%. EY has called on other firms to follow suit and publish their ethnicity pay gap data.
Steve Varley, EY’s UK chairman and managing partner said: “Publishing both our gender and ethnicity pay gap will help to ensure that we have an equal and sustained focus internally on improving these measures of diversity. We also hope to advance change by encouraging other businesses to follow this approach.”
PwC recently revealed its BAME pay gap was 12.8%.
The firm has set out diversity targets to have at least 30% female and 10% Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation in its new partner intake, to be measured every three years. In 2017 the figures of partner intake were 27% female and 13% BAME.
Currently, EY UK has 20% female and 9% BAME partners.
The firm has introduced a series of initiatives in the UK to improve diversity and representation, including the CareerWatch and BME Leadership programmes, which “provide mentoring and sponsorship to high potential female and BME talent from senior leaders in the firm”.
Varley added: “We have made strong progress in the last five years to improve the representation of diverse talent, in all its forms, and we have an action plan in place to tackle this business critical issue.”
“However, we know there is more work to do to speed up the process of achieving parity in the workplace and looking at this challenge through the lens of the pay gap figures has given us even greater resolve.”
Data from Accountancy Age’s Top 50+50 Accountancy Firms revealed that across the board accountancy firms fall short on diversity.
Research by Deloitte last year estimated that the gender pay gap would remain until 2069, unless immediate action was taken to reduce it.