Social Mobility in Graduate Jobs – Still in First Gear?

By Dr Claire Tyler, Prof Lindsey Macmillan & Padmini Iyer

 

In our latest blog, we’re delighted to be joined by Dr Padmini Iyer, Head of Research and Advocacy at social mobility charity Making The Leap to explore the similarities in the findings from our recent research on where inequalities arise in UK graduate recruitment processes.

Our recent UCL research about inequalities in access to professional jobs and Making The Leap’s recent research about what UK employers are doing to advance social mobility paint a consistent picture of employers prioritising outreach work over removing barriers for underrepresented groups during recruitment processes. Here we discuss our key findings and share some practical recommendations to support employers on their social mobility journey.

Still in first gear?

Access to good-quality employment is essential to achieving the financial security and job stability that supports social mobility. Making The Leap’s recent report ‘Still in First Gear?’ shows there is a good level of commitment to advancing social mobility among employers, in spite of challenges to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the UK in 2025. By investing in data, strategy and leadership, employers are increasingly building strong foundations for their social mobility work. However, Making The Leap’s findings indicate that employers’ social mobility work may still be in ‘first gear’, with most efforts focused on outreach and much less action to recruit individuals from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds (LSEBs).

The research shows that 94% of employers’ social mobility work focuses on outreach, compared to only 53% on recruitment. What does this mean in practice? Employers’ outreach work aims to inform and inspire people from LSEBs to consider pathways they have not previously considered. Activities therefore include targeted work experience programmes, events to raise awareness about career pathways, and initiatives to develop young people’s employability skills. These are all valuable interventions – but they do not directly lead to young people from LSEBs getting jobs.

This where social mobility-focused recruitment activities come in: fair and inclusive recruitment processes, high-quality apprenticeships linked to permanent employment, and targeted employment programmes for LSEB individuals. However, with only 53% of employers taking action in these areas, there is clearly a disconnect between informing LSEB individuals about career opportunities, and actually hiring them. Moreover, as discussed below, many employers’ recruitment processes are more likely to reinforce socio-economic inequalities than to resolve them.

Adverse impact during recruitment process is a key barrier to equalising career opportunities

UCL’s recent research about ‘Inequalities in Access to Professional Occupations’ report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, shows the potential consequence of a greater focus on outreach and a lesser focus on adverse impact during the recruitment process. The data shows that students from LSEBs and ethnic minorities are well represented in application pools for graduate roles, but are significantly less likely to receive job offers. For example, working class applicants are 32% less likely to receive a job offer than applicants from professional backgrounds. The penalty for Black applicants is 45% and for Asian applicants is 30%. Even when adjusting the findings to compare applicants who ‘look the same on paper’, including having similar educational credentials, large inequalities remain. This suggests that even if greater investment in outreach is effective for diversifying applicant pools, it is unlikely to solve persistent inequalities in who receives job offers. Efforts to ensure both a diverse applicant pool and hiring pool are required.

UCL findings (Figures 1 and 2) further show that while overall working-class inequalities occur relatively evenly across screening/testing and face to face stages of recruitment, the inequalities by ethnicity are much more pronounced at the screening/test stage, especially for applicants from Black, mixed and other ethnic backgrounds. For example, Black applicants face a 46% penalty at screening/testing and an 8% penalty at face to face stages compared to white applicants. A small proportion of these disadvantages can be explained by other demographic, educational and application characteristics. However, even when we compare candidates who ‘look the same on paper’, Black applicants still face an unexplained 37% penalty at screening/testing and a 5% penalty at face to face stages compared to otherwise similar white applicants. In comparison, working class applicants face an 18% penalty at screening/testing and a 14% penalty at face to face stages compared to applicants from a professional background – again, some of this can be explained by other demographic, educational and application characteristics, however an unexplained 9% penalty remains at each stage relative to otherwise similar applicants from a professional background.

Figure 1: Relative likelihood of passing (1) screening/testing stage and (2) face to face stages for the graduate programmes, conditional on observable differences across applicants, by parental occupation

Figure 2: Relative likelihood of passing (1) screening/testing stage and (2) face to face stages for the graduate programmes, conditional on observable differences across applicants, by ethnicity

 

How can employers move to ‘second gear’?

Making The Leap and UCL’s research identifies several areas of best practice to improve recruitment processes which will help employers move into second gear (and beyond!), including:

1. Collect applicants’ demographic data during recruitment, including socio-economic background data. This will allow you to identify trends and understand whether specific groups are being adversely impacted at each of your assessment and recruitment stages, and in turn, to target your efforts to ensure fairer recruitment processes.
2. Broaden the focus of diversity monitoring to include the screening and online testing stages of recruitment, in addition to any existing focus on face-to-face assessments. If testing is outsourced, employers can challenge external providers of recruitment assessments to provide data on success rates of candidates from under-represented groups for each type of test conducted.
3. Consider introducing contextualised recruitment. This means that those making hiring decisions can evaluate a candidate’s potential and achievements by considering the personal, social, and educational circumstances in which they were gained. This data might include demographic data alongside other information such as type of school and university attended.
4. Offer pre-assessment coaching and support. Anonymised, skills- or task-based assessments may be preferable to using minimum grade/qualification requirements during recruitment. However, as UCL’s research highlights, assessments can still disadvantage ethnic minority and LSEB candidates, so it is important to pilot and evaluate the diversity impact of any new assessments you introduce. You can then offer targeted, pre-assessment support to candidates from less advantaged backgrounds, as they may be less familiar and less confident with assessment tasks compared to their more advantaged peers. You can also work with universities’ and schools’ careers teams to share insights about which under-represented groups may need additional information or guidance to be prepared for online assessments.

What next, and how to get involved?

At Making The Leap, we are looking forward to two forthcoming publications. In January 2026, we will publish The Social Mobility List – a comprehensive overview of individuals, charities, and companies making significant strides to advance social mobility in the UK. And in spring 2026, we will publish a set of in-depth case studies exploring social mobility best practice among UK employers and educators. We are always open to partnerships to support employers’ social mobility journeys, from direct delivery with young people to research and advocacy work. Please do contact us (research@mtl.org.uk) for more details.

At UCL, we are launching a new project funded by the Nuffield Foundation aiming to shine a light on adverse impact during different stages of recruitment processes. We have built an ‘early careers data hub’ containing detailed anonymised data on over 2.5 million applicants (and growing!) to entry-level roles in over 20 large UK employers over several years – the largest research resource of its kind. Using this previously ‘untapped’ data, we will continue our investigation of the role of employers in the career outcomes of young people, specifically now focussing on the barriers faced by underrepresented groups in each type of assessment and selection method. This will provide an evidence base for employers, careers services and universities to drive change and target interventions and support more effectively. Please get in touch (c.tyler.14@ucl.ac.uk) if you would like to hear more about how to participate in our research collaborations. Projects are anonymous, free of charge and full of insights for participating employers.