Number of women in FTSE 100 boardroom roles up to 39% in a decade

Women make up only eight of the chief executives at the UK’s top 100 listed companies. Photograph: Radius Images/Alamy

The number of women in FTSE 100 boardroom roles has jumped to 39.1% from 12.5% 10 years ago, data has revealed, even as equality charities said progress for women in senior leadership roles was severely lagging.

In 2020, 36.2% of boardroom roles on the index were held by women, climbing dramatically from 26.6% in 2016, the global data company BoardEx found. However, the Fawcett Society said the figures do not capture the “shocking lack of diversity” laid bare in its 2022 Sex and Power Index, with “women of colour, disabled women and LGBTQ people missing from positions of power”.