Number of women in FTSE 100 boardroom roles up to 39% in a decade
The number of women in FTSE 100 boardroom roles has jumped to 39.1% from 12.5% 10 years ago, data has revealed, even as equality charities said progress for women in senior leadership roles was severely lagging.
In 2020, 36.2% of boardroom roles on the index were held by women, climbing dramatically from 26.6% in 2016, the global data company BoardEx found. However, the Fawcett Society said the figures do not capture the “shocking lack of diversity” laid bare in its 2022 Sex and Power Index, with “women of colour, disabled women and LGBTQ people missing from positions of power”.
Jemima Olchawski, the Fawcett Society’s chief executive, welcomed the progress but said: “The devil is in the detail here. In the majority of boardrooms men continue to be overrepresented. When we look at the most senior positions of CEO and chair the progress is painfully slow.”
Women make up only eight of the chief executives at the UK’s top 100 listed companies, leading some observers to argue that while progress is being made on gender targets, advances on women in senior leadership roles have stalled.
The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said the BoardEx figures were evidence the UK’s “voluntary, business-led approach” to equality is working “without the need for mandatory quotas” as deployed in countries such as Germany.
However, the Fawcett Society pushed back, with Olchawski saying “the voluntary approach has real limits” that mean “the laggards can simply opt out”. She called for a government requirement for companies to publish actions plans.
According to the FTSE 100 figures, the UK climbed to second in international ranking of 12 similar countries – behind only France on almost 44% – rising from fifth place last year. The data refers to
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