Banks and consultancies top workplaces to grow career in UK

Financial and professional services firms are the best workplaces for professionals to grow their careers in the UK, according to LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 25 Companies list, which ranks the top 25 firms investing in their talent and helping people build careers.

Among the financial and professional services firms ranking highest are banking giants Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC, along with all Big Four consultancies PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG – recognised as companies that excel when it comes to investing in employee success and continued skill development, with generous offers of training, education and mentorship to help employees grow.

The Top 10 2022 UK LinkedIn companies

1.   Barclays

2.   Lloyds Banking Group

3.   HSBC

4.   PwC

5.   Deloitte

6.   BT

7.   Amazon

8.   EY

9.   American Express

10. KPMG
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Spotlighting creation of a diverse workforce

Many of those ranked high on the list are taking action on the diversification of their workforce to ensure a more inclusive environment – something increasingly attractive to employees.

For businesses too, delivering more diverse hiring practices opens them up to a richer talent pool, and helps them meet the current demand-supply gap for talent.

Take top-ranking Barclays, a company that has committed to amplifying the voices of its diverse workforce, creating various Employee Resource Groups to foster inclusion and a sense of belonging amongst employees. The bank, whose UK workforce accounts for 54% (83,500 employees) of its global total, is also embedding flexible working to support colleagues across generations, gender, sexual orientation, and every aspect of diversity.

Diversity is also a hot topic at PwC, which ranks fourth, with a particular focus on gender balance. The Big Four firm, which has 27,200 employees in the UK, is working to close the gender pay gap y-o-y and has joined 10 other private sector companies in partnering with the UK government to improve girls’ access to education and employment in developing countries.

Neurodiversity takes centre stage at Big Four firm EY (ranked eighth), which has pledged to create up to 100 jobs in Manchester after the city was chosen as a major hub to support neurodivergent employees. While KPMG, ranked 10^th, is one of the first major businesses to set goals on class representation. By 2030, KPMG UK, which has a UK headcount of 15,310, wants almost a third of its partners and directors to come from a working-class background.

Benefits – from compensation to flexibility to mental health support

To attract top talent, Barclays recently increased the bonus pool for all employees by 23% to £1.9bn after revealing annual profits had increased to a record £8.4bn; as has accounting giant KPMG, which, following a growth of 10%, will share a £100m bonus pool with its 14,700 UK staff.

HSBC, which has 224,737 employees in the UK (17%), also increased its global staff bonus pool to £2.6bn last year after more than doubling profits, a result of the global recovery from the Covid crisis.

The global bank, which ranked third best UK workplace, has also recognised that the pandemic has affected workers’ mental health, and as such helped launch the Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health – and is committed to taking proactive steps to improve workplace culture and provides tools for better wellbeing and mental health among employees.

When it comes to attracting talent, the top-ranking UK businesses are offering employees flexible work arrangements. Barclays now offers a flexible working policy, and American Express, ranked ninth, recently launched Amex Flex, enabling its 5,604 UK employees to work in the office, at home, or take a hybrid approach combining both.

Providing upskilling and education is another area in which these top-ranking companies are excelling, providing employees with opportunities for progression and upskilling initiatives. And the Big Four firms win on this front.

PwC has committed to investing £1.2bn over the next five years in job creation programmes and projects aimed at increasing skills; while EY has created an educational programme to support its new sustainability service, enabling its global staff to follow a free master’s degree in sustainability.

Deloitte, ranked fifth, continues to run its annual early careers programme, Spring Into Deloitte, which provides 160 undergraduates the opportunity to experience what it’s like to work in a professional setting.

And following last year’s launch of Deloitte’s hybrid work solution, new hires are given a £500 budget to ensure they have a full range of equipment to properly support them while working from home.

Top 25 best workplaces UK, LinkedIn