Diversity & Inclusion 2023 Report
The BVCA and Level 20 are delighted to publish the latest Diversity and Inclusion Report (2023) on the UK private equity and venture capital industry.
The report presents data and analysis on the gender and ethnicity of individuals working in UK firms and highlights progress in the representation of women in investment roles. Women now hold 11% of senior investment roles (2021: 10%, 2018: 6%) in UK firms, including their European offices.
Our largest data set so far
This data set is our most comprehensive yet and includes 268 firms (2021: 186) and 13.5k employees (2021: 8.7k) in UK firms, including their European offices. There has been a significant increase in the number of firms providing us with granular data directly, and we have supplemented this with public sources on gender diversity. The number of firms providing ethnicity data also increased by 73% from 2021. This has enabled us to produce more detailed analysis that firms can use for comparison purposes (particularly by firms’ AUM).
Enhancements in methodology
For the first time we can compare a UK office gender data set to the latest Level 20 European data. This shows the UK is performing well in comparison to other countries, with further room for progress.
Our 2021 and 2018 analyses covered UK firms including their European offices (where firms opted to give this data). Given the expansion and refinement of Level 20’s European data set since then, this year marks a transition point for our methodology going forward as we will report detailed analysis on UK offices only.
How the industry is changing
Overall, the findings highlight improvements in the proportion of women in senior, mid and junior-level roles, recognising that progress was likely to be slow at senior investment levels due to the apprenticeship nature of a career in the industry.
We received more data on ethnicity this year, and whilst analysis can be limited with a smaller data set, it continues to show representation is lower in senior roles.
We hope this report, which includes recommendations backed by focus group discussions, will support the continued drive in the industry to deliver more transparency and action on this important area.
