Gender Diversity Still an Employment Issue

The UK’s largest listed companies have failed to improve gender diversity at senior executive level, and by some calculations are even “going backwards”, new research by the Pipeline shows. The organisation, which trains women for these roles, found that they only made up 16% of executive committees at FTSE 350 companies, notably unchanged from the previous year. For roles with “profit-and-loss” making roles the figure has flatlined since 2016 at just 6%.

These figures come despite renewed efforts by the Government to improve gender diversity at the top of the business community. The Davies Commission, an independent review launched in 2010 which urged FTSE 100 boards to target for a minimum of 25 per cent female representation by 2015, had some success in boosting the number of women on boards, although momentum has stalled recently.

Recommendations from a new review, led by Sir Philip Hampton and Dame Helen Alexander, have broadened the scope further — setting a much more ambitious target for one-third of FTSE 350 board members to be female by 2020, and recommending the same target for executive committees. With the recent performance, there will need to be a bigger drive if businesses are to meet this target.