It’s no secret that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are often locked out of professional careers. Whether it’s due to perceptions, a lack of connections, not holding the right qualifications or being based outside of London, there are a plethora of challenges facing those from less affluent families.
This social exclusion limits the potential of individuals but also disadvantages employers and the economy at large. Greater socio-economic diversity can give employers access to broader talent pools, improve customer experience, and lead to more holistic and better decision-making at a senior level. If all businesses in the UK were to invest significantly in social mobility, this could add up to £19bn to GDP, according to the cross-party think tank Demos.
Financial services is one of many professional industries, alongside the creative sector, medicine and law, with a track record of elitism. This is why the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF), a UK-based charity that supports young people from low-income backgrounds to access their desired careers, has partnered with investment, protection, retirement and in-house advice specialist LV= at this year’s Labour Party Conference – to draw attention to the problem and start conversations with policymakers to address it.
The SMF and LV= recently conducted their Unheard Voices survey, which interviewed around 2,000 16- to 21-year-olds from across the UK in June and July 2025. Only two in five young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds felt a career in financial services was open to people like them, with the biggest barrier to success deemed to be “knowing the right people”.
Emma Woodford, chief people officer at LV=, says that businesses have a responsibility to improve social mobility at a workplace, local and national level – from introducing more inclusive hiring processes and challenging perceptions to working in partnership with charitable organisations like the Diversity Jobs Group to recruit local people and acting on nationwide research such as Unheard Voices.
“Social mobility is fundamental to a truly inclusive workplace culture,” says Woodford. “When performance and potential drive success instead of your background, that’s when businesses, the sector, society and, importantly, individuals experience the best outcomes.”
Within the organisation, LV= has reduced unconscious bias in its recruitment and internal development processes through methods such as anonymised applications and management training. It has also started collecting staff socio-economic data, so it can benchmark its progress in improving social mobility, committing to this as part of its membership of the financial services sector social mobility initiative Progress Together.
Many companies neglect to include socio-economic data in staff diversity demographics – yet the Unheard Voices survey found that around three quarters of respondents agree that class background should be included in companies’ DEI schemes.
Partnerships with charities can also be effective mechanisms to help young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to kickstart their careers. The SMF worked with 21-year-old Joshua Preece, originally from Cwmbran in South Wales, to get into financial services; he is now a software engineering intern at the fintech company Finbourne Technology.
Joshua says he faced both “geographical and financial” barriers in breaking into the industry – he was unable to afford the costs of relocating to London, meaning he struggled to gain work experience during university summer holidays. He was also unable to self-finance qualifications like the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) programmes, which can be prohibitively expensive.
“Many peers could afford to do this while I was at university while I couldn’t,” says Preece. He believes that means-tested grants for young people from low-income backgrounds could help individuals manage the costs of training: “I think this is a no-brainer since it would have a good short-term return on investment.”
More broadly, he felt he lacked a suitable role model: “I think I faced a cultural barrier where I didn’t have anyone in my personal life who had a corporate job and therefore couldn’t model my interview style or persona from them.” So, when Preece was partnered with a mentor from SMF, this “helped [him] immensely when navigating challenges surrounding culture, imposter syndrome and opportunity.”
“I remember reading a lot of job descriptions, understanding them but having no real idea of what the day-to-day would actually look like,” he says. “Mentoring and networking played a huge role in providing me insight that allowed me to be ambitious in my career pursuits.”
At a government level, Joshua believes schools need to start teaching children from an early age about how educational attainment can lead to financial security. “Many young students in my position have parents who are time and energy poor, which means they perhaps don’t engage in school the same way and by the time they get to 15 or 16, financial services are already off the cards. I think curriculum reform that promotes the explicit use of ideas like social mobility to young students would have a huge effect.”
He believes that the financial services sector is more meritocratic and less focused on social status than other industries: “Companies want the best talent, regardless of what economic background it might come from.” Woodford agrees that government intervention is needed to challenge the sector’s image, such as through a national campaign that promotes the value of financial services careers. She also believes expanding funding for apprenticeships and career-readiness programmes is vital to provide alternative routes beyond university. One in three young people interested in a career in financial services is considering a degree apprenticeship, according to
the Unheard Voices survey.
The government’s new Growth and Skills Levy aims to boost apprenticeships, with an increased budget of over £3bn. It’s also more flexible than the Apprenticeship Levy it replaces, shortening the minimum duration of apprenticeships to eight months, introducing new foundation apprenticeships in priority sectors and permitting other short-skills courses in key areas to be levy funded from next year. But currently just 5 per cent of degree apprenticeships go to people who previously received free school meals – a lower figure than for traditional university courses.
Ensuring that funding from the levy reaches young people from lower socio-economic households could help these “earn while you learn” courses deliver on their social mobility potential. Collaboration between industry, policymakers and charitable organisations is essential to enable this to happen.
By combining policy interventions with better employment practices, financial services careers can be made more accessible and desirable for all – benefiting individuals, businesses and the economy at large.
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