AMS have voluntarily published its ethnicity pay gap since 2021. The decision came off the back of a deliberate move to make race equity a priority for the business. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) has always been core to AMS's strategy, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it drives better business outcomes. As a talent acquisition and workforce solutions business, AMS also helps its clients access talent from a wider range of backgrounds, so ensuring its own practices are fair and equitable matters commercially as well as culturally. AMS now reports on gender, as well as ethnicity, disability and social class pay gaps voluntarily in a single annual UK Pay Gap Report.
Accountability is a board-level priority
Reporting is delivered in the UK by AMS's DEIB Centre of Excellence, which was established around the same time reporting began and carries both an internal and an external remit. The Centre partners with HR Business Partners, the Reward team and People Analytics to pull and validate the data. Overall ownership, however, sits with the DEIB Board, which meets quarterly, is chaired by AMS's founder and chair, and includes the CEO and other members of the executive committee.
AMS estimates that the annual cycle, which includes running the analysis, validating it with HR business partners and the reward team, and pulling the findings into a report, amounts to just a few days' work in total. The first year took slightly longer to get off the ground; each subsequent year has been easier as relationships and processes bed in. AMS has separately invested time in internal workforce dashboards to support ongoing monitoring of representation, recruitment, promotion and attrition. These dashboards strengthen internal decision making.
Driving data disclosure
Pay gap reporting only works if enough colleagues have shared their ethnicity data. AMS's UK disclosure rate stood at 87% at the April 2025 snapshot, with the movement largely reflecting changes in the shape and size of the business rather than any loss of employee confidence.
Reaching and holding that level has come from a myriad of campaigns. AMS has run a major disclosure campaign encouraging colleagues to complete their ethnicity data on their HR system, supported by a communications plan that explains plainly why the data matters, what AMS does with it, and the fact that it is only ever reported anonymously and in aggregate.
Building trust has been as important as running campaigns. Communications consistently explain why ethnicity data is collected, how it is protected and how it is used to improve employee experience. What works is a combination of voices, with top-down messaging from the executive establishing it as a business priority combined with personal stories, drawn from AMS's Employee Resource Groups, explaining in colleagues' own words why sharing the data matters and what it makes possible.
With colleagues based across the UK and many working remotely, AMS uses a thoughtful internal comms plan across multiple channels and utilises central emails from ExCo Sponsors, posts on the intranet and internal engagement platforms, and DEIB colleagues joining team calls directly so that reaching people does not depend on a single communication arriving at the right moment.
AMS's ethnicity pay gap
AMS reports mean and median ethnicity pay gaps, following CIPD guidance in comparing pay between white and ethnic minority colleagues. Their internal data goes further, with dashboards that break the data down by heritage group – white, Black, Asian and other – giving the DEIB team a more granular view for action planning.
The data is split into quartiles based on hourly pay, which map to AMS's career levels – the lower quartiles covering more junior roles, the upper quartile senior management and above. In the April 2025 snapshot, ethnic minorities made up 17% of those who had disclosed. Internal analysis helps AMS understand representation across Career Levels and identify where targeted interventions are needed, particularly in progression into senior leadership.
The results show sustained progress. AMS's mean ethnicity pay gap has fallen year on year from 14.6% to 11%, and the median from 11% to 5.9%. Ethnic minority representation has improved by around one percentage point at all levels compared with the previous year. Progress is not linear, as the composition of the business changes, representation moves with it, and AMS has seen this effect both its disclosure rate and its quartile data. The organisation is clear that progress is ongoing and that meaningful work remains, but the direction of travel over the reporting period is broadly positive.
From data to action
The value of reporting has come from what AMS has done with the findings. The business has a dedicated Ethnicity Board with an Executive Sponsor and Employee Resource Group leads among its members, which partners closely with the DEIB team to strengthen ethnicity reporting and workforce insight. Working with people analytics, AMS has built dashboards drawing on HR data that track representation by grade alongside recruitment, promotion and attrition – allowing the organisation to be genuinely data led rather than reliant on an annual snapshot.
The most impactful intervention has been the EmBue programme, AMS's development programme for mid-level ethnic minority colleagues. The data showed a clear break in representation between mid-level and senior roles, and the programme was designed to address that. High-potential colleagues at Career Levels 3 and 4 are identified for a 6-month development programme, each with both a mentor and a sponsor. The second cohort graduated in 2026, resulting in two senior-level promotions. It has also had a cultural effect beyond the participants, with graduation day being a business-wide event.
AMS has additionally published an ethnicity representation target for its global leadership and have been transparent about performance against it. Representation in global leadership has risen from 4% in 2020 to around 17% within 5 years, and new targets are currently being agreed to improve this further as part of AMS’s dedicated Ethnicity Action Plan.
Representation data alone does not tell the whole story, so AMS supplements it with its 'Every Voice Matters' employee engagement survey, which can now be filtered by demographic data including ethnicity. That adds colour beyond headcount, showcasing how colleagues from different backgrounds actually feel at work and their sense of belonging, which helps direct where to intervene.
There have been external benefits too. Voluntary reporting has strengthened conversations with clients and stakeholders, who increasingly expect organisations to demonstrate progress on Diversity & Inclusion. AMS has found it has real commercial value as our approach to DEIB is consistently asked about in client bids and RFPs.
Key takeaways
Key takeaway 1: Secure senior sponsorship early and treat reporting as a strategic business priority. AMS's oversight structure – a quarterly DEIB board chaired by the founder, with the CEO and executive committee members sitting on it – is what has kept ethnicity pay gap reporting on the agenda through business change and a challenging external climate for DEI.
Key takeaway 2: Disclosure campaigns need consistency, multiple voices and localised tailoring. AMS's rate has been built and maintained by combining executive messaging, personal stories from Employee Resource Groups and a clear fairness messaging, delivered across several channels.
Key takeaway 3: The value of reporting lies in the interventions that come from it. Annual reporting costs AMS a couple of days of internal effort and no external consultants. What has narrowed the gap is a targeted development programme at the mid-to-senior level, published leadership targets, and ongoing monitoring of recruitment, promotion and attrition by underrepresented group.
