The Inner Temple is delighted to announce that, for the fourth consecutive year, we have been ranked as one of the top 75 employers in the Social Mobility Foundation Employer Index.
Social Mobility Employer Index 2020
The Top 75 UK employers in 2020 who have taken the most action on social mobility in the workplace were announced today. They include financial services firms, engineering firms, law firms, government departments and retailers.
The Index is the creation of the Social Mobility Foundation, and ranks the UK’s employers on the actions they are taking to ensure they are open to accessing and progressing talent from all backgrounds. It highlights the employers doing the most to change the way they find, recruit and progress talented individuals from differing social backgrounds.
The Inner Temple’s ranking is recognition that our outreach work has taken meaningful, evidence-based action to improve social mobility in the profession over the last 10 years. The Inn remains acutely aware that more action is needed to level the playing field, and continues to continually improve while working with others to ensure the most talented can access the profession, no matter their background.
The 2020 report noted that:
It’s really positive that the organisation is using social mobility cold spots to target its outreach work, reaching young people beyond your doorstep in areas where the need for support is highest. As the Social Mobility Commission’s ‘State of the Nation 2018-19’ report demonstrated, the biggest gap in access to opportunity is no longer the ‘north/south’ divide, but that between London and the rest of the country. It’s therefore more important than ever that organisations like yours continue to target your support at social mobility cold spots, using innovative new approaches to reach young people across the country…
Yours is one of a small number of organisations in the Index with a good ratio of visits to both Russell Group and non-Russell Group universities. This is important because the Russell Group only makes up a small proportion of the student population and half of the top A-level candidates in the UK go to non-Russell Group universities.