FTSE Women Leaders Review 2026 – ‘Achieving gender balance’ five years on?

This year marks the fifth year of the FTSE Women Leaders Review. This year’s Review Report, which was published on 24 February, continues to build on the legacies of the Davies and Hampton-Alexander Reviews. Focusing on the representation of women in business leadership, the Report provides insights into the progress made during 2025 while reflecting on the significant changes that have occurred over the past five years across the FTSE 350 and the top 50 largest private companies in the UK. 

This blog post covers the key findings of the Report, as well as its recommendations and key takeaways for employers. 

Key findings

The Report presents a mixed picture of significant achievements alongside areas requiring intensified focus.

• Progress in board representation – the UK continues to demonstrate strong performance internationally, ranking second among G7 nations behind France. The FTSE 350 has largely maintained its impressive gains, with women now holding 43% of board positions. This figure is an increase from 10% in 2011, reflecting a transformational shift over the past decade and a half. Notably, 92% of FTSE 100 companies and 88% of the FTSE 350 are now at or near the 40% women on boards target. There have been no all-men boards in the FTSE 350 since 2020 (although some FTSE 350 companies have still not met the target set in 2020 of 33% female representation). For the 50 largest private companies, now in their fourth year of data reporting, female representation on boards stands at 30%, with 33% of these companies meeting or exceeding the 40% target. While progress is evident, three private companies still report all-men boards, and 14 have only one woman on their board.
• Women in leadership and executive roles – female representation in broader leadership roles, encompassing executive committee positions and their direct reports, shows a positive trajectory. The FTSE 350 reports 36% women in leadership, with the 50 largest private companies at 37%. A significant majority (64% of FTSE 350 companies and 78% of private companies) are at or near the 40% women in leadership target. However, a closer look at executive director roles reveals slower progress, with women holding only 15% of these positions in the FTSE 350. This contrasts sharply with the near-parity achieved for non-executive director roles. The appointment rate for women on FTSE 350 boards also saw a decrease, dropping to 42% in 2025 from 46% in 2024.
• Challenges in four key roles and functional areas – progress in the "Four Key Roles" (Chair, Senior Independent Director (SID), CEO and CFO) remains a mixed bag. In the FTSE 350, women occupy 17% of Chair roles, 61% of SID roles, 8% of CEO roles, and 21% of Finance Director roles. While the SID role has seen substantial growth, the rate of change for Chair, CEO and CFO positions has not kept pace. A notable finding in the report is that 18% of FTSE 350 companies still have no women in any of these critical roles. Analysis of functional leadership roles in the FTSE 350 reveals a "siloing" effect, where women are strongly represented in roles like HR Director (82%) and Company Secretary (57%), but underrepresented in traditional CEO pipeline roles such as Finance Director (21%) and Chief Information Officer (21%). This imbalance highlights a potential area for development to foster a more diverse CEO pipeline.

Recommendations for future action

To address remaining challenges, the Report reiterates and re-emphasises its four key recommendations:

• Securing the 40% board and leadership target – the Review continues to encourage companies to maintain the 40% board and leadership targets, in order to ensure sustained gender balance.
• Focusing on the most senior roles – the Review also suggests that all companies move beyond the ‘one and done’ style representation on boards and in senior leadership positions and instead focus on increasing their efforts to remove bias from the selection process for board and leadership appointments.
• Encouraging FTSE 350 companies that have fallen behind – looking at the companies that have still not yet met the 2020 target of 33% female representation, the Review recommends that these boards look to the underrepresented gender when appointing and recruiting new members, with key stakeholders setting best-practice guidance or having in place “alternative mechanisms” to encourage the company to meet the target.
• Engaging a wider spectrum of businesses  – the Review’s scope was extended in 2021 to include the largest 50 private companies in the UK. The Report emphasises continued work across this wider spectrum of business to promote consistency in market practices and encourage further progress across the UK. 

Key takeaways for employers

The Report demonstrates that while significant strides have been made in increasing female representation in UK boardrooms and leadership in recent years, work remains to be done. It underscores the importance of not just meeting targets but also embedding diversity at the highest levels and across key functional roles that serve as pipelines to executive leadership.

Alongside the public and industry attention generated by voluntary initiatives such as the Review, various provisions in the Employment Rights Act 2025 will require employers to take steps to encourage diversity and inclusivity. This includes changes to the flexible working regime, day one rights to parental leave, more obligations on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, and increased dismissal protection for employees who are pregnant or returning from family leave. There will also likely be a focus on diversity beyond gender – for example, through the government's proposed Equality (Race and Disability) Bill which would require large employers to report ethnicity and disability pay gaps. 

Given this ongoing focus, employers should keep their policies, practices and pipelines under review, and look critically at whether the steps they are taking to encourage diversity in their workforce and at leadership level have generated tangible results.

For further information, please speak to the authors of this post or your usual Freshfields contact.