THE recent spate of sex discrimination cases has dissuaded female graduates from joining the City, the head of Britain’s biggest accounting firm said.

Kieran Poynter, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, blamed bad publicity from the lawsuits for a drop in female graduate applicants in the past two years. PwC is trying to boost the level of female recruitment from 39 per cent to its previous rate of 47 per cent.

“We’ve struggled to work out why recruitment is down and we think it must be one of the factors,” Mr Poynter told The Times. He also attributed the drop to an increase in female graduates taking gap years or deciding to continue their studies.

In recent years, banks have fought several claims from senior women in the City.

Sarah Churchman, head of diversity and student recruitment at PwC, agreed that the headlines could have put women off, but added that the firm also found from campus surveys that many female students were intimidated by numeracy tests.

Fiona Sandford, head of careers at the London School of Economics, said that about 80 to 90 per cent of female students expressed concern over reports in the media of the culture in financial firms.

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