Names will be omitted from university and graduate recruitment applications in an effort to remove the danger of unconscious bias against students and jobseekers from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds.
UCAS, the organisation that manages UK university admissions, and leading graduate employers from the public and private sectors, including Teach First, HSBC, the BBC, the NHS, and Virgin Money, will sign the pledge to make their applications "name-blind" from 2017 in an effort to reduce potential discrimination in the application and hiring process.
The announcement will be discussed in further detail in a meeting held in Downing Street on Monday, where prime minister David Cameron will discuss discrimination in the workplace and in education with Nicky Morgan, the education secretary and minister for women and equalities.
Writing in The Guardian, Cameron said the move will mean "those assessing applications will not be able to see the person's name, so the ethnic or religious background it might imply cannot influence their prospects".
The pledge follows Cameron's speech at the Conservative party conference last month, in which he cited research that found people with "white-sounding" names are nearly twice as likely to get job callbacks as people with "ethnic-sounding" names.
In August, a researcher found that BME students might also be losing out to white students on places at Russell Group universities.
Vikki Boliver, a researcher at Durham University, found that while 54.7% of applications by white candidates received an offer, acceptance among minority candidates was much lower, with black African applicants averaging a 21.9% success rate.