From Data to Action: What CFOs Are Learning About Social Mobility in Financial Services
How do you move from believing social mobility matters to actually doing something about it?
That question sat at the centre of a recent Progress Together CFO Roundtable, held in association with Grant Thornton UK, where senior finance leaders from across financial services came together to explore what it takes to turn aspiration into accountability on socio-economic progression.
The discussion was informed by findings from the Grant Thornton Finance Leaders Barometer – an independent, anonymous survey of 530 UK CFOs conducted in the first half of 2026 – and the perspectives shared reflect the views of participants around the table.
Strong belief – but the data isn’t there yet
There is no shortage of conviction in the sector. The Finance Leaders Barometer finds that 82% of financial services organisations agree that improving socio-economic progression strengthens financial performance. But conviction and capability are not the same thing.
Only 7% of financial services organisations who completed the survey have deep insight supported by robust data into the barriers affecting progression. Almost one in three admit they have very limited or no meaningful data at all.
Roundtable participants described social mobility as harder to pin down than other diversity strands – less visible, less data collected, and without the regulatory pressure that exists for gender or ethnicity. Parental occupation was identified as the most robust starting measure, with the practical advice being to collect group-level data to identify directional patterns and begin work at a systematic level.
Disclosure rates remain a practical challenge. The most effective lever reported was senior leaders sharing their own stories – when people from both advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds talk openly about where they came from, it normalises the conversation and disclosure rates improve. Storytelling, in this sense, is not just a culture tool. It is a data strategy.
Progression strategies are still largely aspirational
The Barometer data underlines the gap between intent and action. Only 10% of financial services organisations currently have formal, measurably effective progression strategies for talent from all socio-economic backgrounds. One in five have no plans to develop one. Around 70% intend to implement a strategy within the next 12 months – but intent without clear ownership tends to stall.
Nearly eight in ten financial services organisations agree that they promote socio-economic inclusion externally while internally lacking a clear plan to advance diverse talent.
The organisations making progress have assigned clear accountabilities, linked outcomes to performance conversations, and built measures simple enough to track over time. Representation by numbers is a starting point; the more powerful move is linking attrition and promotion data to socio-economic background – that is where you see not just who joins, but who progresses and who gets stuck.
Social mobility as a talent risk
Framing social mobility as a risk – not just a values commitment – proved the most effective way to shift the conversation at the roundtable. Every financial services firm in the Barometer sees the declining pipeline of qualified accountants as a risk over the next 24 months. If progression pathways are opaque, organisations are narrowing their own talent pool. For smaller firms in particular, openness to talent from a wider range of backgrounds is a competitive necessity, not just a fairness question.
The commercial case is clearest in customer-facing businesses. In retail banking, a workforce that reflects the diversity of its customers brings insight that a homogeneous team cannot. There was recognition that restricting the talent pool by school or degree status cuts the business off from people with relevant knowledge and lived experience to understand different customer needs.
Risk-taking also featured in the discussion. The ability to take career risk is unevenly distributed throughout the workforce. Organisations that do not create a platform where everyone can afford to take a step up – not just those with financial safety nets – will find their most ambitious talent leaving rather than stretching.
The CFO is well placed to make this case: quantify the cost of attrition at management level, model the value of the talent not being seen, and connect inclusion to workforce risk conversations that already have board attention.
Where the barriers sit
Participants identified three areas where barriers are most acute and where action is most achievable.
On hiring, reducing criteria in job descriptions, removing unnecessary degree requirements and introducing pay transparency are practical, low-cost actions. Briefing executive search firms explicitly on what a diverse candidate pool looks like was highlighted as an underused lever with disproportionate impact.
On progression, the step into management is where socio-economic background most often predicts who advances and who stalls – the point where decisions are most subjective and least audited. Progress Together’s own data illustrates the mechanism precisely: progression was equitable at levels where promotion was automatic, but diverged sharply at the point where it became dependent on managers identifying individuals, who tended to select people like themselves. Structured processes, visible criteria and pay gap analysis by socio-economic background can make sponsorship less reliant on informal social capital.
On environment, psychological safety matters as much as formal process. Guidance on what presence and visibility mean in hybrid settings helps prevent informal norms from disadvantaging those with fewer social cues about how corporate environments work. Having a seat at the table is not the same as being heard – and socialisation centred on drinks or golf continues to exclude by default. Cross-organisational networks, buddy schemes and reverse mentoring give people from lower socio-economic backgrounds a sounding board they may not otherwise have within their own function.
AI: opportunity and risk in equal measure
AI featured as a thread running through the discussion. Participants agreed it has genuine potential to reduce accumulated disadvantage – supporting colleagues through writing and communication tools, helping part-time workers save time, and making progression more visible. But if access is unevenly distributed across teams and roles, the gaps will widen rather than narrow. CFOs should treat AI access as part of the equitable opportunity conversation, not just a technology rollout.
The role of the CFO
Social mobility is as much a financial question as a people one – and the CFO is well placed to make it visible. Participants acknowledged that measuring its impact in financial terms is difficult, but the directional case is clear. The cost of attrition at management level, of unreached talent, of a workforce that doesn’t reflect its customers – these are commercial consequences that CFOs are well placed to quantify and cascade into hiring, progression and performance conversations.
Finance functions have specific levers: training budgets can be directed to ensure development access is equitable; pay gap analysis can be extended to socio-economic background; and apprenticeship and development pathways can be designed to give people a clear line of sight to senior roles.
Key recommendations
From the discussion, participants identified the following priorities for CFOs and senior finance leaders:
- Invest in data collection – without it, strategy is guesswork. Start with parental occupation as the most comparable and robust measure of socio-economic background
- Move from aspiration to accountability – assign clear ownership, set measurable targets and embed progression outcomes into mainstream performance conversations
- Use the CFO lens to make the business case – frame social mobility as a talent risk, not just a values commitment. Organisations that can’t access the full pipeline are already at a skills disadvantage
- Redesign processes, not just narratives – simplify job descriptions, remove unnecessary degree requirements, pay transparently, and brief recruiters with the same expectations you’d apply internally
- Create psychological safety for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to thrive – especially in hybrid and in-person environments where informal networks and visibility still matter
- Use AI thoughtfully as an enabler – it can level the playing field, but only if access is managed equitably across teams and roles
- Tell stories before setting targets – role models and lived experience build trust in the data and create the cultural conditions for change
