Diversity data update November 2024

Riot Communications is proud to have earned The Blueprint diversity mark, an industry standard awarded to PR agencies who have demonstrated their ongoing commitment to removing inequality and barriers to progression for Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority communications professionals.

As part of The Blueprint, we have signed up to the initiative’s 23 commitments, which cover a range of areas from recruitment and nurturing talent to company culture. One of these commitments is to publish our diversity data each financial year, which we are doing here for the first time.

We have put a good deal of thought into the best way to do this.

Firstly, although the Blueprint pertains specifically to race, we decided that we wanted to take a broad approach and look at other Protected Characteristics in addition. In fact, after a discussion about what was relevant, we decided to ask our team about all nine Protected Characteristics to show we understand all are important. We then added a few further questions of our own, for example some questions which we hoped would give insight into socio-economic background, which we also want to ensure is not a barrier to working at Riot.

Secondly, as an organisation, we believe that measuring our progress is the best way to ensure we’re moving in the right direction, and we absolutely want to demonstrate transparency on our journey. However, as a small business (in fact, the smallest to have been awarded The Blueprint!), currently with 10 employees, we are also very mindful of ensuring none of our team feel exposed or as if they are personally identifiable from what we post. We, of course, offered ‘prefer not to say’ as a potential response for every question we asked, but it is still important for us to consider this factor when sharing data from a small group, and this is the reason why certain points below are less specific than others.

Bearing that in mind, our staff survey conducted in November 2024 told us that:

• For a small agency, we have good diversity in terms of age range.
• 80% of our team are women, 20% are men.
• We have some representation from the LGBTQ+ community.
• 20% of the team consider themselves to have a disability (based on the Equality Act 2010).
• 40% of the team consider themselves neurodiverse. (Note: While UK law generally considers neurodiversity to be a form of disability, we wanted to ask this question separately. Our hope is that this allowed for both people who are neurodiverse and consider it a disability, and people who are neurodiverse and do not consider it a disability, to complete the survey in the way that felt right to them.)
• 30% of the team are Black, Asian, Mixed Race or Ethnic Minority.
• We have representation from at least two religions as well as individuals who are not religious.
• 30% of the team are parents.
• None of the team currently have other caring responsibilities.
• 50% of the team are married or in a domestic partnership. 50% of the team have never been married or in a civil partnership.
• 100% of the team have an undergraduate degree and 30% have a masters degree, doctorate or post graduate degree.
• Finally, we asked team members about the highest level of education either of their parents/guardians had completed by the time they were 19 years old. 40% reported this was secondary school or higher/secondary/further education. 50% reported this was an undergraduate degree or masters degree, doctorate or post graduate degree.

We are aware that being a truly inclusive agency requires constant learning and progression, and that there is always more to be done. This is a journey that we are always on together, and there is no end point – or, at least, we are certainly not there yet.

However, we are proud of the company culture we have created and that our team actively works to make Riot a place where people feel welcome. We look forward to seeing what more we can achieve in the coming 12 months.

We will report on our diversity data again in November 2025.

Picture: Riot team © Marc Sethi