Social Mobility Strategy

BDO’s Social Mobility strategy places talent and communities at the centre of our ambition to grow. By ensuring every individual feels included, valued, and able to thrive, we create the conditions for high performance and sustainable business success for our people and for our communities. Through this approach, we reinforce our commitment to purposeful work and strengthen talent attraction, showing that our organisation is a place where opportunity is open to all and potential is recognised, regardless of starting point

Impact in numbers

• Almost £350,000 spent on social enterprises
• 9,644 hours of employee time given to community volunteering
• Ranked within the Top 75 Employers on the Social Mobility Employers Index 2025
• Won ‘Company of the Year’ in the British Diversity Awards 2026
• 96 young people joined in our annual work experience sessions Explore BDO and Black Heritage in 2025
• 1,200 young people registered to attend our Insight Days in July 2026 across 12 UK offices

Our Impact Report

Young Minds 2026: The Unequal Advantage

Now in its fourth year, Young Minds is a survey of 2,000 18–25-year-olds. It explores the topics of social mobility, early career experiences, and feelings of inclusion and belonging in the workplace. For the first time this year, the findings have been written up into BDO’s flagship social mobility report: Young Minds 2026, The Unequal Advantage. The findings tell us:

• Today’s generation of young people are ambitious, principled and highly attuned to the structural forces shaping their early careers
• Social mobility is still determined by ‘who you know’ not talent alone
• There is an unequal starting line in access to guidance, work experience and employers
• Equal opportunities and access to the world of work is conditional
• Technology is playing an increasing role in filling the career guidance gap and are being substituted as social capital
• Almost all young people believe there to be at least one or more barriers which would prevent them from getting a job or progressing to a more senior role

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Talking About Impact

As a firm that provides highly skilled jobs, career progression and professional qualifications across the UK, we’re well placed to drive positive change in social mobility. We work to make a positive impact through our school partnerships, Early in Careers programmes and employee networks. Our Bridge Network was established to remove barriers to access and progression within the profession and our firm. This is what social mobility means to them.

Bridge

BDO’s employee-led network, Bridge, is for our people who want to learn more about social mobility, access support and knowledge around the challenges that can be faced by people entering professional spaces coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and provides mentoring opportunities.

Find out more about Inclusion and Belonging at BDO.