Investment profession trails behind other financial services when it comes to diversity and inclusion

The CFA, the professional membership body representing more than 12,000 investment professionals, runs an annual survey on diversity and inclusion in the industry.

It found that over a third (35%) of respondents believe that inclusion and diversity is worse in the investment sector than in other financial services sectors, and that half (51%) feel that more progress is required to create a more inclusive culture – this figure matches the figure for the last two years, showing that little progress has been made. 

Respondents want more effort to be put into ensuring that board and executive level positions are more diverse too.

“Investment professionals continue to identify issues around inclusion and diversity year after year and more must be done to address this,” said Will Goodhart, chief executive of CFA UK. “We cannot allow the investment sector to trail behind other areas of financial services in making progress.

“Interestingly, the results this year have revealed that men and women hold different views on some of these issues. Notably, 58% of the women who participated in the survey feel that progress is needed in improving the gender pay gap, compared with only 27% of men; the figures for improving board representation are likewise split at 49% and 33% respectively.

“The proportion of investment professionals who have not undergone any kind of inclusion and diversity training is also surprisingly high. Recently, we’ve seen the FCA increasing its own diversity mandate and it is clear that the authority expects firms to do the same. Improving training on these issues is a good place for firms to start as they look to build more inclusive and diverse teams.”

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