2024 DEI report Practicus

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) in our placements

2024

Comparative analysis of protected characteristics amongst candidates placed by Practicus and the general population of the UK

Report

Jon Webster

Marketing Director, Practicus

October 24, 2024
9:53 am

As a talent provider, it is essential for us to have an inclusive approach to talent with transparent reporting – ensuring the very best expertise for our clients.

It is an issue we care about and, clearly, it is of interest to the candidates we represent and increasingly our clients too.

Throughout the year, we survey the talent we place, whether into interim management or executive roles.

The survey covers protected characteristics such as Ethnicity, Age, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Disability and Religion/Beliefs.

We have used its findings for comparative analysis with the general population’s characteristics (Census 2021), and the results for 2024 are set out below based on our 2023 placements.

Ethnicity

Ethnicity	UK Population	Practicus
Ethnicity White	UK Population 81.7%	Practicus 72.5%
Ethnicity Mixed or Multiple Ethnic Groups	UK Population 2.9%	Practicus 5.9%
Ethnicity Asian or Asian British	UK Population 9.3%	Practicus 7.8%
Ethnicity Black, African, Caribbean or Black British	UK Population 4.0%	Practicus 12.7%
Ethnicity Other Ethnic Groups	UK Population 2.1%	Practicus 1.0%
Ethnicity Prefer not to say	UK Population 0.0%	Practicus 0.0%

The ethnicity of Practicus’s placements aligns well with the UK population and is, if anything, a little more diverse than the county as a whole. A particular area of note is the higher than average placements of Black, African, Caribbean and Black British candidates.

Age

Age	UK Population	Practicus
Age 20 – 29	UK Population 12.6%	Practicus 2.9%
Age 30 – 39	UK Population 13.6%	Practicus 15.7%
Age 40 – 49	UK Population 12.7%	Practicus 26.5%
Age 50 – 59	UK Population 13.7%	Practicus 37.3%
Age 60 – 69	UK Population 10.7%	Practicus 17.6%
Age 70+	UK Population 13.6%	Practicus 0.0%

Practicus candidates tend to skew older than the general population, with most being between 40 and 69. This is perhaps unsurprising given that our placements tend to be senior professionals, executives and interim managers.

Gender

Gender	UK Population	Practicus
Gender Female	UK Population 47.83%	Practicus 48.0%
Gender Male	UK Population 45.87%	Practicus 50.5%
Gender Non-binary	UK Population 0.06%	Practicus 0.7%
Gender Transgender	UK Population 0.20%	Practicus 0.0%
Gender All other gender identities	UK Population 0.04%	Practicus 0.0%
Gender Prefer not to say	UK Population 6.00%	Practicus 0.7%

The survey of Practicus candidates placed in 2023 is largely consistent with gender in the wider populace.

A note of caution is needed on minority gender identities, however. While the Practicus survey and the 2021 census all provide data on this area, it is hard to draw conclusions with the percentage point differences between the sources being less than 1%. Combined with the much smaller data sample sizes of the Practicus survey compared with the whole population census, the cumulative result is that the differences may not be statistically significant.

Sexual Orientation

Sexual orientation	UK Population	Practicus
Sexual orientation Bi-Sexual	UK Population 1.28%	Practicus 2.0%
Sexual orientation Other	UK Population 0.34%	Practicus 0.0%
Sexual orientation Heterosexual	UK Population 89.37%	Practicus 93.1%
Sexual orientation Homosexual	UK Population 1.54%	Practicus 3.9%
Sexual orientation Prefer not to say	UK Population 7.47%	Practicus 1.0%

Again, the Practicus survey is proportionate with the UK census and shows representative diversity in our placements.

It is worth noting that non-heterosexual orientations in our survey were higher than the level of incidence in the population but again we are dealing with smaller differences of less than two percentage points.

Additionally, it must be taken into account that responses on sexual orientation in the 2021 Census had one of the highest incidences of “Prefer not to say”, with 7.47% of people choosing that option. This compares to just 1% “prefer not to say” in the Practicus survey. This may account for the differences among minority orientations when compared with the Census data.

Disability

Disability	UK Population	Practicus
Disability Don’t know	UK Population –	Practicus 0.0%
Disability No	UK Population 80%	Practicus 89.2%
Disability Yes	UK Population 20%	Practicus 9.8%
Disability Prefer not to say	UK Population –	Practicus 1.0%

Incidence of disability amongst the interims placed by Practicus in 2023 was 9.8%, 10.2 percentage points lower than the country’s working age population.

The disabilities indicated in the Practicus survey by order of greatest frequency were:

Reduced physical capacity
Hearing impairment
Learning disability
Mental ill health
Physical coordination difficulties
Autism
Progressive conditions
IBS
Long Covid
Long-standing back complaints

* Please note: disabilities and difficulties are different. For completeness and full transparency, we have included all conditions indicated in responses to this question from our survey, whether they are classed as a disability or better described differently as a difficulty or other condition.

Religion and beliefs

Religion	UK Population	Practicus
Religion Buddhist	UK Population 0.5%	Practicus 2.0%
Religion Christian	UK Population 46.2%	Practicus 40.2%
Religion Hindu	UK Population 1.7%	Practicus 2.9%
Religion Jewish	UK Population 0.5%	Practicus 2.9%
Religion Muslim	UK Population 6.5%	Practicus 3.9%
Religion Sikh	UK Population 0.9%	Practicus 2.0%
Religion Other religion	UK Population 0.6%	Practicus 4.9%
Religion No religion	UK Population 37.2%	Practicus 38.2%
Religion Prefer not to say	UK Population 6.0%	Practicus 2.8%

We compared the results of the survey we commissioned of Practicus candidates with the 2021 Census data.

It revealed that religious beliefs amongst candidates placed by Practicus are highly diverse. The results track closely with religious beliefs in the population overall but with some small differences that may be due to sample size.

About the data sources used in this analysis

Practicus data source

The survey of Practicus 2023 placements had a 35.35% response rate by candidates. Data collection was anonymized to prevent profiling and other concerns highlighted by candidates and EDI experts in preparatory research. Tools were used to ensure individual responses cannot be extracted from the overall data set that Practicus received in order to prevent ‘jigsaw identification’.

General population data sourceS

For the general population data source, we used the recently released 2021 Census Data. While only taken every 10 years, the census provides a gold standard for data on the UK population, providing both the highest quality and most appropriate source of data for comparison for our purposes.

However, there is one exception. While the Census does cover disability, it does not provide equivalent data for comparison with our own survey. For this reason, we used the Department for Work and Pensions data that provides its disability dataset in a form that allows direct comparison. This dataset just covers the working-age population, which in many ways is more useful for analysis in the context of this report.

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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Practicus has a strong commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). We have implemented policies and practices that promote EDI throughout our organisation, with a dedicated team to support it.