Lewis Silkin rises to seventh on Social Mobility Employer Index

The Index was created by the Social Mobility Foundation in 2017 and ranks UK employers according to what they are doing to change how they find, recruit, and advance talented employees from different socioeconomic backgrounds. A total of 150 organisations (employing almost a million people in total) put themselves forward for the Index this year.

Employers are assessed across eight key areas:

• Work with young people
• Routes into the employer
• Attraction
• Recruitment and selection
• Data collection
• Progression, culture and experienced hires
• Advocacy
• Employee survey

Our social mobility programme is focused on helping young people from areas of low social mobility, where there are fewer opportunities to progress. We aim to play a role in raising the aspirations of these young people, and in reducing the impact of inequality, by providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

The firm’s outreach work includes our flagship Lewis Silkin mentoring scheme which pairs students from areas with low social mobility with a mentor for nine months. Other initiatives include our cold spot outreach sessions – virtual careers workshops delivered to students in areas of low social mobility - virtual and in-person primary school reading schemes and our Nikki and Ellen Scholarship Scheme, which provides financial support to bright young people who want to study law at university.

We also published our second social mobility pay gap report earlier this year, as part of efforts to set the benchmark for transparency, accountability and action on social mobility within the legal industry.

Jo Farmer, Joint Managing Partner, said:

“At Lewis Silkin we’re committed to playing a role in creating a more equitable society through our social mobility work. The Social Mobility Index assesses the steps that employers are taking to ensure that their workplace is open to talent from all social backgrounds. I’m absolutely delighted that we’ve made it into the list of the top ten firms on the Index for the first time - this is a reflection of the extent of our efforts in this area, so a huge thank you to everyone involved”.