Women on boards: UK leads the way but there is still work to do

On 25 February, the 2025 FTSE Women Leaders Review Report was published with encouraging news that 25 years after we started monitoring and reporting on the board composition of UK PLCs, we have achieved gender balanced leadership, with women now occupying over 43% of positions on company boards. But this hasn’t happened by accident.

The UK started measuring the proportion of women on boards in 1999, at the same time as the USA and Canada. Back then, just 6.9% of FTSE 100 board directors were women. The data was collected by the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management. I joined in 2004 and when I became lead researcher in 2007, that figure had increased incrementally to 10% - we were literally increasing the number of women by single figures each year.

This glacial pace of change was what prompted the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to take on the challenge of change. This started the process that evolved into the Lord Davies Review of Women on Boards (2010-2015), controversially setting a voluntary business-led target for the FTSE 100 companies to reach 25% of women on boards by 2015.

The target was hit and the Lord Davies Review was followed by the Hampton-Alexander Review 2016-2020 and then the FTSE Women Leaders Review. So much consistent and concerted effort by academics, business leaders, search firms, diversity leaders, regulators, and media – to name just a few – supported by government, all standing on the shoulders of those before them.

Whilst it is correct to say that the reviews did not use mandatory quotas, it is also important to recognise that this change absolutely did not, nor would not have happened ‘organically’. It took a structured approach to strategic inclusion comprising:

· Data: The first step in any strategic change an organisation wants to make, particularly at board level. Measuring and publishing data focuses attention.

· Strategy: Based on the evidence of the data, not on supposition, which leads to objectives setting.

· Objectives: Clearly measurable and time-bound.

· Interventions: Evidence-based, actively implemented and aligned to the strategy and objectives.

· Accountability: Clear and transparent results.

In this age of DEI backlash, it is salient to recognise the importance of this (albeit) slow and steady progression towards better work environments, with a focus on organisations’ people and culture, so that anyone can aspire, belong and contribute.