Reports reveal women are still underrepresented in corporate leadership roles in the UK

The most recent investigation, conducted by PwC, into the treatment and presence of women in leadership roles in the UK, showed that developments towards achieving gender equality have been exceedingly slow.

From the data recorded in the Women in Work Index, it is evident that since 2011, the gender pay gap has gone down by only 2.5 percentage points. The gender pay gap currently stands at 14 per cent.

Sam Smith, the Managing Director at Household, stated: "Despite an evolution in challenges facing today's younger generation of women, the lack of action across the industry has remained the same as we saw from the latest gender pay gap report."

Between the years 2020 and 2021, the UK fell five places on the Women in Work Index, from ninth place to 14th place. This was due to a decline of women participating in the manual labour industry, and the widening of the gender pay gap.

In 2019, the 'Gender equality at every stage: a roadmap for change' revealed the major steps that are essential when tackling the issue of women being stereotyped in the workplace.

But 4 years later, in 2023, women are still predominantly represented in job roles that are based on gender stereotypes. For instance, the government revealed that in 2023, over 75 per cent of schoolteachers were women. Women also dominate the hospitality industry, making up almost 60 per cent of workers.

In 2023, women are still underrepresented in leading job roles, together with being dominated by men corporate field. Studies show that only 26 per cent of the tech workforce are women. In addition to women being underrepresented in the tech industry, only 15 per cent of the executive roles in the finance sector are occupied by women.

"Many businesses still follow outdated tick-box standards, failing to recognise the obstacles faced by women and falling foul to showboating the minority of women that do make it to the C-Suite, which I have seen and experienced at some of the larger networks," according to Sam Smith, the Managing Director at Household.

"This completely undermines the talented and creative women within our industry and has the effect of pigeonholing female success as looking one particular way, ignoring all other avenues or forms this may take," she added.

Although there have been some developments towards achieving gender equality and shifting the narrative for young women who would have been forced into stereotypical job roles in the past, changes have been made for minor outcomes.

Currently, women hold 32 per cent of senior management positions, which has only increased by 11 per cent in the last decade.

Grant Thornton International, one of the world's largest global networks of independent member firms, released a statement in regard to the data.

The statement read: "These numbers are a reflection of an awakening by leaders of how important it is to have a diverse environment, and of stronger efforts on their part to build a more inclusive culture."

POWERful Women is a professional initiative that aims to create a gender-balanced, diverse, and inclusive UK energy sector. The campaign sets out to increase the number of women in middle management and leadership roles in the UK energy sector by having women make up at least 40 per cent of the industry by 2030.

POWERful Women revealed that in 2022, 75 per cent of the leading energy companies in the UK have no women in executive director positions.

Katie Jackson, the Chair of POWERful Women, concluded: "We require a step change on gender diversity in UK energy as we strive to reach net zero. We can't continue to ignore a vast pool of female talent that is critical for innovation, leadership, and business success during the energy transition."