Boardroom boost for females | Women take more FTSE 350 seats but the gender gap continues

The number of jobs held by women in the FTSE 350 increased by two percentage points last year to 42.1 per cent, according to the Government-backed FTSE Women Leaders Review yet many female professionals say it’s not enough.

The FTSE 350 includes some of the UK’s biggest companies and it’s good news for women in business to learn that rates of female senior leadership on the board are rising. The figure represents a hike of a significant 24.5% recorded when the report was launched in 2017. Yet, when it comes to the very top positions only ten women currently serve as CEOs of FTSE 100 companies.

Representation leans into men

The independent business-led initiative, the FTSE Women Leaders Review, is focused upon increasing women’s representation on the boards and leadership teams of the FTSE 350 and the UK’s 50 biggest private companies. It shows that over half of these companies are on their way to reaching the goal of 40% women in leadership. Yet, the appointment rate still leans in favour of men with more than six out of every ten vacancies in the year being awarded to a man. To reach the targets, this means that over the next two years, almost every other appointment will need to go to a woman.

Lily Searle, a lawyer at Fieldfisher says: “As usual the devil is in the detail - numbers of female CEOs are still relatively poor and the majority of those 42% will be NED’s who still provide a valuable contribution to boards but won’t be the executive decision makers.”