More women at board level in UK companies but men still dominate

FOR the first time, women account for more than 40 per cent of board roles in the UK’s biggest companies.

The government-backed FTSE Women’s Leaders Review also found that only 10 of the country’s 350 largest listed companies now had all-male executive teams.

The number of women on the boards of FTSE 100 and mid-sized FTSE 250 companies rose by 3 per cent over the last year. Nevertheless, the review noted that UK companies were failing to appoint women to leadership positions below board level at the same rate.  Women occupied only 33.5 per cent of these posts, the review said.

Unlike EU countries, ministers in Britain are not inclined to introduce mandatory targets for women on boards.

Kemi Badenoch, the UK’s Business and Trade secretary, who also holds the Women and Equalities ministerial brief, said the increase in the number of women on boards during 2022 showed that change did not always require top-down intervention.

“It can occur when everyone is pushing in the same direction,” she pointed out.

At present women occupy roughly a third of the UK’s top jobs, according to the Fawcett Society which campaigns for women’s right. Men still dominated the upper echelons of British business, the society’s analysts found.

Only seven women lead FTSE 100 companies, although the number briefly rose to nine last year before one company was demoted from the index and Alison Brittain stepped down as Whitbread’s CEO.

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