Our 2021 study found some improvement on gender diversity in private equity and venture capital but considerable progress is required on ethnicity. The report builds on the 2018 ‘
Women in Private Equity’ report and highlights data from across the industry including, for the first time, on ethnicity. The report also expands on data published by Diversity VC in 2019 in the ‘
Diversity in UK Venture Capital’ report.
Gender data
The data collected on gender indicates the overall proportion of women in the industry has risen to 38% (PE 2018:29%, VC 2019: 30%) and, encouragingly, 20% of investment team professionals are women (PE 2018: 14%, VC 2019: 20%). To add to this, all male investment teams have declined to 12% (PE 2018: 28%, VC 2019: 37%), in what is a noteworthy shift.
It also reveals a positive trend for female representation in venture capital and private equity, regardless of seniority. The number of women working in investment roles across senior (10%), mid (20%) and junior levels (33%) is improving, in small, mid and mega sized funds (based on Assets Under Management).
Ethnicity data
On ethnicity, the report marks the first and pivotal step toward capturing this data from across the industry and establishing a baseline on which future progress can be measured.
The number of firms who provided data on ethnicity was lower (73 firms) than of gender. However, even though the sample size is smaller, more needs to be done to improve representation in respect of ethnicity across private equity and venture capital.
The intersection of gender and ethnicity in senior positions in firms requires the most attention as less than 1% of Women at this level are Black, less than 1% are Multi-Ethnic/Mixed and only 1.6% are Asian.
Representation at senior levels regardless of gender is also an area that needs serious improvement as only 1% of individuals are Black, with 1% Multi-Ethnic/Mixed and 11% Asian. This under-representation continues across all levels of seniority in the industry while 54% of firms who provided this data have all white investment teams.
Encouraging transparency
While this data on both gender and ethnicity provides the industry with a foundation to work from, both the BVCA and Level 20 firmly believe that further transparency is necessary to drive progress and the conversation must continue to address the findings.
As such, both organisations have committed to encourage firms to provide this data going forward for future progress reports, using the tools published alongside this report, to support openness and improvements on this issue.
The report also contains a set of industry recommendations from the BVCA and Level 20 aimed at supporting further progress, including fostering an organisational culture that promotes diversity of background, experience and thought, and reviewing and enhancing recruitment processes to attract more women and people from different backgrounds.