Is DEI basically discriminatory against non-Londoners? (Half joking, half not)
So this might sound like a weird take, but hear me out.
From what I have seen, the vast majority of DEI candidates I know in finance all seem to be from London. And once you start looking, it kind of makes sense because almost all of the pre-university DEI pipelines (Insight Days, mentoring programmes, school outreach, etc.) are focused on London state schools, particularly in the less affluent boroughs.
I only really realised how skewed it is after all the George Abaraonye and Oxford admissions discussions recently. It made me notice that a lot of the metrics used to define social mobility for DEI purposes are structured in a way that advantages London students and disadvantages people outside.
Example: Free School Meals thresholds. Where I am from, the cap is around £7.4k, which basically means you do not qualify unless neither of your parents is meaningfully employed. In London, it is around £31k, which is literally higher than the average income in the region of the country I am from. So, a London kid with one/single working parent can qualify as low income for DEI purposes, whereas someone outside London with a much tougher financial situation often does not.
On top of that, access is a huge problem. I have been going to spring weeks and insight events and honestly the only reason I have been able to is because I have relatives in London to stay with. Excluding spring weeks where they put you up in a hotel and the handful of firms that reimburse travel for insight days, living outside London is a massive disadvantage. I cannot imagine what it is like for a working class student from a forgotten post-industrial city who somehow makes it into a non-London target or high semi-target and then has to deal with that extra barrier.
It is also mad to think about how much of an advantage even being poor and from London is. Even once you are an analyst, if your parents have a council or social house in London you can save a huge amount on rent, especially if it is central. Honestly I have no clue why there are still council houses in places like Chelsea and Kensington. It seems inefficient not to sell them and use the money to build two to five times as many in another part of the UK. If you have never had a job or earned good money, why do you need to live in central London? It just feels like bad economics and probably suppresses wages in low-skill jobs too.
Anyway, I am kind of joking, but not really. Curious if anyone else has noticed this dynamic?
Is what you're saying entirely accurate? No. E.g. your free school meals anecdote - incorrect. Your council house suggestion lacks critical thinking.
But Is there some advantage to being from London for diversity stuff? Yes, absolutely.
Reality is that DEI is mainly focused on ethnic minorities at the moment, not socio-economic factors. Debate whether that's fair another time. Reality is also that the vast majority of ethnic minorities live in the south, and especially in London or London-connected regions. So yeah it's natural that it would feel like there is a bias to London.
Honestly, i would suggest the opposite. Very involved in my BB's group recruiting process for SA's and OC's so can speak from experience. Since I have started, there seems to have been a massive shift towards looking at socio-economic factors using key indicators (E.g. SEO London mentioned, North of England / Midlands state school etc). Based on what is communicated to me from seniors, the current london DEI tierlist is: 1. Women, 2. Socio-economic, 3. BAME (I mean look at any top london IBD programme, it's hard to prioritise recruiting black people into our group for SA/OC when you have like 2-3 to pick from and even less in the EB's from what i have heard).
Lets just say if you can recruit a white kid from a northern state school who turns out to be actually good and receive an FTO, you are a gem finder.
Also a side note as an Indian who went to a mix of state and private schools (On scholarship), a big important thing which unfortunately does not get mentioned a lot here is the divergence in career choices for working class students of different backgrounds. Remember, in almost every division the bare minimum is having a degree. Lets go back to the stage where your career optionality's really start being determined, GCSE's.
Say you have Frankie, a white student, and Michael, an African student. Both are of working class background's, with barely passing GCSE grades. You are 5x more likely to see Frankie opt to become a tradesman apprentice, construction site apprentice, local real estate apprentice, insurance broker (especially if Frankie is from Essex) than you are to see Michael doing that. Why is that? Frankie is english, and he has seen many other working class English men start in careers like this, make money early and become their own business owners sometimes with great success (even if this is some sort of physical services / handyman oriented business model) - this could even be a path that an extended family member went down.
Michael on the other hand has no precedents of this, his African parents see no other option except from university, even if this ends up being a shitty non target like de montfort uni. Michael will go on to sixth form, earning mediocre grades and earning admission through clearing for a mediocre university. Still, he is at a university so is infinitely more likely to land a role in an investment bank (usually back / mid office) than Frankie is. This dynamic is so specific to the UK but is so important which is why i am always baffled when no one brings it up in DEI conversations here. There are many Michaels in the Asian, African and Caribbean communities.
Socioeconomic definitely coming into focus but not quite core focus, at least at my bank. And even then, as OP is saying, the IBs (especially those in CW who subsidise tower hamlets) tend to focus their local area.
And yeah I should've said gender and ethnic minority focus. Gender is huge ofc.
Have you seen Baird London’s SA class this year, grand total of 4 people non of them white (3 black guys and 1 Asian girl).
Whose insufferable virgin’s turn to post this same thing again tomorrow?
You raise an important point. A lot of DEI pipelines in finance do seem disproportionately centered on London, which naturally advantages students there both in terms of access and eligibility. It highlights how geography can shape social mobility outcomes just as much as income or background.
Agreed but this is more of a structural problem facing the UK in general regarding the job market, and DEI schemes just reflect that reality.
The UK is one of the most economically centralised countries in the Western world. I.e., in the US there are multiple hubs where one can make a career for themselves, however, in the UK, for most parts in the corporate world, your only options are London, Birmingham and Manchester (with the latter two not being anywhere as mature as London)
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