KPMG UK has set diversity targets for 2018 looking to increase the number of female, black, Asian, minority ethnic (BAME), disabled and LGBT professionals.

The firm’s targets are most ambitious around increasing the number of women in leadership positions. The firm’s female population currently counts for 15% of all partners, 23% of directors and 36% of senior managers. By 2018 the firm wants to see the number of female partners at 25%, directors 36% and senior managers 46%. In order to achieve the numbers the firm’s chairman Simon Collins said the firm will have to "double the number of female audit partners to hit our gender target".

KPMG UK is the first professional service firm to set such targets and Collins said "the diversity profile of the workforce across the professional services industry does not reflect society or our client base".

"We need to change and I believe a crucial part of achieving a meaningful shift is providing more transparency of the make-up of our current staff against where we would like to be," he said.

"It’s uncomfortable but we need to step up and be open and honest about the challenges we face. Greater transparency means we can be scrutinised against the targets we set ourselves. It means we can test the success of our inclusivity programmes and demonstrate that we are serious about this issue."

Collins has previously openly expressed his disappointment over the low number of female partners appointed by the firm.

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Ethnicity
KPMG UK targets reveal that currently 7% of its partners are of BAME with only 0.9% of its partners black professionals. The firm has committed to increase those numbers to 9% and 2.2% respectively by 2018.

Collins said that "overall numbers on ethnicity are good but, for example, we know we need to do much more to support black professionals as less than 1% of our partners are black."

Over a percent, 1.4%, of the firm’s 11,500 workforce say they have a disability and 3% class themselves in the LGBT category. The firm committed to increase its workforce of disabled individuals to amount to 2.8% of overall staff and 4.1% of LGBT.

The breakdown of the diversity profile of the firm’s employees was conducted in July when the firm asked its staff to complete a diversity profile, which included race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and education levels, according to KPMG UK head of diversity and inclusion Steve Frost.