How Diverse Are Newcastle's Most Powerful Institutions?

Newcastle has become noticeably more ethnically diverse over the past decade, while some of the city's biggest public institutions have introduced increasingly prominent equality and diversity policies.

But has that demographic change been reflected in the organisations with significant influence over life in the city?

Figures from Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Hospitals and the city's universities provide a complicated answer. Some measures point towards substantial change, while others reveal differences in pay and representation which have persisted despite years of equality initiatives.

There is also an important distinction between having a diverse workforce and having diversity within the highest-paid and most influential positions.

Newcastle's population has changed significantly.

The starting point is the city itself.

Office for National Statistics figures show that 80% of Newcastle residents identified within the White ethnic group at the 2021 Census, down from 85.5% in 2011.

The Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh population increased from 9.7% to 11.4%, while the proportion identifying as Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African increased from 1.8% to 3.3%.

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups increased from 1.5% to 2.3%, while other ethnic groups rose from 1.5% to 3.1%.

That means approximately one in five Newcastle residents identified outside the broad White category in 2021.

Newcastle is also considerably more diverse than the wider North East, where 93% of residents identified within the White category at the same census.

Newcastle City Council figures reveal a gap.

Newcastle City Council is an obvious organisation to examine when considering whether the city's institutions reflect the people they serve.

The council voluntarily publishes ethnicity pay-gap information despite there being no general statutory requirement for employers to publish it.

Its 2024 to 2025 Fair Pay Policy reported that the average hourly rate for ethnic minority council employees was 8.68% lower than for White employees.

The median ethnicity pay gap stood at 7.09%.

Historical figures provide an additional insight into where employees were positioned within the organisation.

When Newcastle City Council first published ethnicity pay-gap figures in 2021, only 3% of employees in its highest pay quartile were identified as BAME, compared with 97% identified as White.

In the lowest pay quartile, 5.6% were identified as BAME and 94.4% as White.

The council's overall ethnicity pay gap at that time was 7.2%.

Those figures should not be confused with saying that only 3% of the council's leadership was from an ethnic minority background. A pay quartile includes everyone falling within that quarter of the organisation's pay distribution and is not identical to a list of senior decision-makers.

Nevertheless, it provides an important indication of representation among the council's highest-paid employees.

Has anything changed at the council.

There is another interesting feature within the figures.

The council's reported ethnicity pay gap was 7.2% in 2021, while the mean gap reported for 2024 to 2025 was 8.68%.

The figures therefore do not indicate that the headline gap has disappeared.

Newcastle City Council has acknowledged that representation and progression require attention. Its earlier work included examining recruitment processes, looking at barriers affecting progression and considering how to attract more external ethnic minority applicants.

Its policy response has continued to develop.

In February 2025, the council signed UNISON's anti-racism charter, committing itself to measures including ethnicity pay-gap monitoring, a visible race equality policy and equality and anti-racism training.

In March 2026, it also became the first North East local authority to back the North East Anti-Racism Coalition's Become the Bridge campaign, which asks organisations to develop practical actions rather than relying solely on statements of intent.

The question for residents is whether those policies will eventually produce measurable changes in progression and senior representation.

Newcastle Hospitals presents a different picture.

Newcastle Hospitals offers another useful comparison because of the sheer size of its workforce.

Its 2025 Workforce Race Equality Standard report recorded 16,777 employees, excluding bank and agency staff.

Of those, 19.92% were from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds on a full-time equivalent basis.

At headline level, that is strikingly close to the roughly 20% of Newcastle's population identifying outside the White ethnic category in the 2021 Census.

The NHS trust also reported that 99.89% of employees had disclosed their ethnicity, making the dataset unusually comprehensive.

But once again, an organisation's overall workforce cannot tell us whether its senior positions have the same demographic profile.

A hospital employs people across an enormous range of occupations and grades. Overall representation may therefore conceal substantial differences between professions and levels of seniority.

What do Newcastle's universities tell us.

Newcastle's universities provide another perspective because both employ large professional and academic workforces.

Newcastle University's 2025 equality report recorded a mean ethnicity pay gap of 1%, increasing from 0.4% in 2024.

The university voluntarily analyses ethnicity and disability pay gaps even though it is not currently legally required to publish them.

It also operates an established Equality, Diversity and Inclusion structure and has implemented initiatives intended to identify disparities and improve inclusion.

Northumbria University's figures produce another interesting result.

Its overall mean ethnicity pay gap was -0.4% in 2025, meaning ethnic minority employees earned fractionally more per hour on average than White employees. Its median figure was -2.9%.

But those headline figures hide substantial differences.

Among Northumbria's academic employees, the mean ethnicity pay gap was 9%. Among professional support staff it reached 15.2%, with a median gap of 23.6%.

That demonstrates one of the biggest difficulties when judging institutional diversity from a single statistic.

An organisation can have virtually no overall ethnicity pay gap while simultaneously recording substantial gaps within particular sections of its workforce.

Does equality law require Newcastle to reflect its population.

One misconception surrounding diversity policies is that UK equality law requires organisations to recruit employees until their workforce precisely matches local demographics.

It does not.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people against discrimination because of characteristics including race.

It also permits employers to use certain forms of positive action when groups sharing a protected characteristic experience disadvantage or are disproportionately underrepresented.

This could include targeted outreach, training or programmes intended to widen opportunities.

Recruitment itself is more restricted.

Government guidance says an employer can potentially take an underrepresented protected characteristic into account when choosing between candidates of genuinely equal merit and when the legal conditions for positive action are satisfied.

It cannot simply appoint a less suitable candidate because that person belongs to an underrepresented ethnic group.

Quotas or policies which automatically favour applicants because of protected characteristics can amount to unlawful positive discrimination.

Have Newcastle's equality policies actually worked.

This is considerably harder to establish than identifying which policies exist.

Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Hospitals, Newcastle University and Northumbria University all have equality programmes, publish data or participate in initiatives designed to improve representation.

There is evidence of demographic change within some institutions.

There are also continuing gaps.

Newcastle City Council's ethnicity pay figures show a persistent difference in average hourly earnings, while its historical data revealed particularly low ethnic minority representation within the highest pay quartile.

Northumbria demonstrates almost the opposite statistical problem. Its overall ethnicity pay gap has effectively disappeared, but substantial gaps remain when academic and professional staff are examined separately.

Newcastle Hospitals, meanwhile, now has an overall BME workforce percentage remarkably similar to the ethnic minority share of Newcastle's population.

None of these figures proves that equality policies caused the changes that have occurred.

Newcastle's institutions recruit from local, national and international labour markets. Demographics within particular professions are different from the demographics of Newcastle as a whole. Migration, education, workforce turnover and changing patterns of self-identification can also influence the figures.

Does Newcastle's leadership look like Newcastle.

The evidence suggests the answer cannot be reduced to a simple yes or no.

Newcastle is substantially more diverse than it was in 2011, and some of its biggest institutions have workforces that are becoming increasingly diverse too.

But the most revealing question may no longer be simply how many employees come from different ethnic backgrounds.

It is where within those organisations they work.

The 2021 Newcastle City Council figure showing just 3% ethnic minority representation in the highest pay quartile illustrates why seniority matters. The latest council pay-gap figures also show that differences in average earnings remain.

If Newcastle's major institutions want to demonstrate that their equality strategies are working, publishing consistent information about recruitment, promotion, seniority and pay over time would allow residents to judge the results for themselves.

Equality policies are now firmly embedded across many of Newcastle's public institutions. The next question is whether the measurable outcomes at the top are changing alongside the city below.

Share your views.

Should Newcastle's most powerful institutions reflect the city's population?