Equity, diversity and inclusion

Equity, diversity, and inclusion

At PPL, we recognise the importance of hiring, developing, and promoting the best people, from the widest possible talent pool – regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, age, disability, background, or any other characteristic.

We have a long-term commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). They are embedded in our people strategy, to enable us to continue developing a working culture that is welcoming, fair, and considerate to all.

We do this by focusing on a number of key areas: how we approach recruitment and career opportunities such as apprenticeships and internships; how we develop, reward, and train our staff and support their wellbeing; and how we engage with them on equity, diversity and inclusivity issues.

We have sought to play an active part in driving wider change across the UK music industry, through our involvement in initiatives such as the UK Music Diversity Taskforce. We also work with a range of other organisations in the music industry and wider creative sector who are taking forward the EDI agenda.

That work has contributed to an increase in the number of non-white employees in the lower earning half of the workforce, which could provide candidates for PPL’s future leadership as they progress through the company in the coming years. It is also a factor in the slightly over gender parity now found among our senior leadership team.

Strategy

Our approach to delivering fundamental change was formalised last year in a robust five-year EDI strategy, which sets priorities and clear targets for change. We were one of the first organisations in the music industry to publish an EDI strategy, and it has already resulted in a number of positive initiatives and outcomes, including:

• Developing the next generation of female executives by partnering with The Cat’s Mother, a network of established women in the music industry who offer mentoring for young females.
• Engaging with young people from low-income backgrounds through Mentivity, an award-winning mentoring and alternative education provider which supports young people at risk of exclusion from schools in London and Brighton.
• Creating opportunities for people with disabilities thanks to a partnership with disability charity Leonard Cheshire, which offers paid summer work placements, professional development, and mentoring to young people with a disability or long-term condition. We provide paid placements, ensuring support for the intern at each step of the way. Five interns have transitioned into permanent roles here.

The strategy sets out our goals for the diversity of our workforce by 2027:

• Our gender goal is a 50-50 split between men and women. As of April 2023, our workforce was 62% male and 38% female.
• Our ethnicity target in the strategy was based on the 2011 census data for London and South East England, where most of our staff live. That target has since been updated according to the 2021 census data and now stands at 65% white people and 35% non-white people. In April 2023, people declaring any ethnicity other than white made up 30% of PPL’s workforce, compared to 27% in 2022. The 2023 figure rises to 35% among the lower earning half of our team.

Annual employee data

Despite currently having fewer than 250 employees – the level which would trigger a formal requirement to publish gender pay data – we choose to publish both gender and ethnicity data voluntarily each year, as part of our goal of becoming a more diverse and transparent company. We first published annual gender pay gap data in 2017, and added ethnicity pay gap data in 2021. There is no legal requirement for any company to publish staff ethnicity data.

Notable trends in the 2023 figures include:

• Mean pay gaps – the average difference in pay – decreased for both gender and ethnicity between April 2022 and April 2023.
• The company’s senior leadership team – Executive Directors and Heads of Department – is just above gender parity, at 51% female.
• PPL’s mean gender pay gap is just 0.3% once CEO base pay is excluded.
• The proportion of staff who declare as ethnicities other than white has increased by 3% since the 2022 reporting period.

Read the 2024 editions of PPL’s annual ethnicity pay gap and gender pay gap reports 

Read more about our 2024 equality, diversity, and inclusion data