Our gender and ethnicity pay gap reports for 2023-2024

For 2023/24, we’ve seen improvements in the right direction for both ethnicity and gender pay gaps for our employees. For this timeframe, our gender pay gap was 13% (4% annual decrease) with an ethnicity pay gap of 11% (4% annual decrease). 

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Fiona Baldwin, Head of Operations, Strategic Leadership Team

Our ambition is that Grant Thornton is fully inclusive every day, it is the place where everyone’s feelings and experiences matter, where all our people are treated fairly and where everyone has equal opportunities to achieve. Our deliberate actions to attract, retain and progress diverse talent are accompanied by setting measurable targets and holding our leaders accountable for progress.

Our pay gaps for 2023/2024 are based on a data snapshot taken in April 2024 

The reportable mean pay gaps (employees only) are: 

• gender pay gap of 13% (4% annual decrease)
• ethnicity pay gap of 11% (4% annual decrease).
    

When partners are included, our mean pay gaps for 2023/24 are: 

• gender pay gap of 33% (1% annual increase)
• ethnicity pay gap of 33% (no change from 2023).
   

Our reportable mean bonus gaps (employees only) for 2023/24 are: 

• gender bonus gap of 43% (7% annual decrease)
• ethnicity bonus gap of 28% (5% annual decrease).

Data insights 

Our gender and ethnicity pay gaps are heading in the right direction, and show we’re making progress. When we calculate our pay gaps at each level (the like-for-like pay gap) we see that people in our firm are remunerated comparably for work done at similar levels. At the associate level (which includes all trainees in the first three to five years of their careers), our people are paid according to a trainee reward matrix, which ensures that reward and recognition is fair and linked to exam success. 

We’ve focused our efforts on creating a culture of inclusion as we believe this is vital for all our people to thrive.  Our latest internal pulse survey showed that our people continue to feel a strong sense of belonging (81%) and pride (84%) in our firm. 

We’re not complacent and are focused on continuing to challenge ourselves in terms of how work opportunities are allocated fairly, how performance is evaluated, and ensuring that senior leaders actively advocate for diverse talent and support them to progress. 

2024 outcomes 

• Since 2018, the percentage representation of ethnic minority employees has increased at every level, with overall representation rising from 16% in 2018 to 30% in 2024
• Targeted action to improve our pipeline of women and ethnic minority colleagues in senior management is resulting in improvements in representation and hires at senior levels in the firm
  • female experienced hires increased to 53% in 2024 (from 44% in 2021)
  • ethnic minority experienced hires were at 39%, of which 9% were Black (higher than the population statistics)
  • female representation at director level increased to 34% in 2024 (from 24% in 2021)
  • ethnic minority representation at director level increased to 12% in 2024 (from 11% in 2021)
  • female representation at partner level increased to 24% in 2024 (from 20% in 2021)
  • ethnic minority representation at partner level increased to 9% in 2024 (from 6% in 2021) 

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Jenn Barnett, Director and Head of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, said:

Developing and progressing diverse talent to more senior levels remains a key area of focus. Continuing to focus on a diverse pipeline of future leaders will help to improve our reportable pay and bonus gaps and more importantly, provide visible role models and leadership for our increasingly diverse talent.

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Hazel Platt, Senior Leadership Team Sponsor for Gender, said:

To promote inclusive leadership, all our partners completed our new gender allyship programme which promoted awareness and understanding of the barriers women and gender minorities face in the workplace and encouraged allyship to support progression. The New Parent Mentoring scheme was also introduced in 2024, and our priority for 2025 is to amplify this scheme to further support all our people who take family leave, ensuring a smooth transition back to work and normalising equal parenting.

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Mo Merali, Partner and Sponsor for Ethnicity, said:

We will focus on deepening understanding of cultural difference and enabling leaders to excel in leading increasingly diverse, global teams. Role models and sponsorship are also core priorities in our gender and our ethnicity action plan. In 2024 we introduced targeted progression and coaching programmes for our gender and ethnic minority talent and throughout the next year we will ensure that our ethnicity action plans are fully aligned to the barriers our people are experiencing. We will work with senior leader sponsors to address the intersectional barriers faced by ethnic minority women, implement cultural intelligence sessions to increase confidence in multicultural interactions, deliver race allyship training and continue to invest in our progression and coaching programmes.

 2024 key achievements 

• Further embedded our flexible ‘how we work’ framework, which underpins our culture of everyday inclusion
• Extended paid paternity leave from two to six weeks to ensure greater gender equality in working family benefits  
• Maintained our position as a Top 10 Working Families Employer in 2024 for our approach to flexible working and improving family leave policy
• Won the Working Families Best Practice award for ‘All Round Flexibility’
• Recognised as a Times Top 50 Employer for Gender Equality 2024
• Rolled out a gender allyship programme to all partners to promote awareness and understanding of the barriers women and gender minorities face in the workplace and encourage allyship to support progression
• Introduced our revised caring for others policy which now offers up to five days of fully paid carers’ leave per year, replacing previous provisions and ensuring equitable support
• Embedded a new parent mentoring scheme to support parents with the transition back to work following any type of family/parental leave 

Targeted actions we’re taking 

We’re addressing the systemic, cultural barriers that exist within the workplace, which have limited progress and opportunity for all underrepresented groups. The activity we undertake to do this includes sponsorship, flexible and family-friendly working, education and language, visible role models, accountable leadership, and transparent opportunities. 

Each business area seeks to ensure there are equal and transparent work opportunities for everyone. Senior leaders are held accountable for improvements in diversity representation across all levels, ensuring that opportunities for promotion and performance are transparent and positively impact diversity in our firm. 

Some key actions include: 

• specific action plans sponsored by senior leaders for both ethnicity and cultural heritage and gender to identify and remove barriers
• performance ratings are reviewed by gender and ethnicity across all service lines, together with a review of the proportion of people who’ve been promoted
• quarterly updates are provided to each business area, including information on gender gaps in their business area so that they can identify and address trends
• developmental programmes for women, non-binary (NB) and gender non-confirming (GNC) colleagues at mid-senior levels, including access to a partner advocate and coach facilitator
• targeted progression and coaching programmes for ethnic minority talent
• return-to-work coaching for people returning from family leave, ensuring a smooth, supported transition back to work, recognising that this is a critical time in someone’s career, requiring greater flexibility, support and mentoring
• removing unconscious bias in job adverts, advertising flexibility in all roles, committing to better gender balance in interview panels and training our people in equality and unconscious bias  
• efforts to increase the uptake of flexible working (including job sharing), through greater visibility and progression opportunities

Reported pay gaps for 2023 to 2024 

A snapshot taken in April 2024