Women’s representation in the workplace drops sharply as they progress from entry level to senior roles across the UK, new data reveals.
The gender gap is particularly pronounced within the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, where women are being left behind at the top levels.
Across the UK, women make up 49.6% of workers at entry level, according to data from LinkedIn for the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report 2026.
But this falls to 21.2% of workers in the C-suite – referring to a company’s most senior leaders such as the chief executive officer (CEO) or chief financial officer (CFO).
Globally, women’s representation from entry level to C-suite drops by half, from 46% to 23%, on average across 57 economies.
The so-called “drop to the top” is more pronounced within industries such as transportation, infrastructure, real estate and financial services, reflecting greater barriers to progressing to senior positions.
It also identifies career breaks as one of the clearest points where the gap in progression opens up.
Women in the UK are more than five times more likely to take a career break for full-time parenting than men, at 29.1% compared with 5.3%.
LinkedIn’s research is based on samples of workers from the roughly 1.3 billions worldwide members of the professional social media platform.
Its research has also revealed that women may be falling behind men in the AI boom.
Women accounted for a quarter of new hires in AI roles last year. compared with half of hires in non-AI roles, and made up 13% of C-suite AI executives at AI firms.
However, women make up 57% of workers in occupations likely to be disrupted by generative AI, compared with 43% of men.
The report found that as AI increasingly powers firms and whole economies, “gender parity is shaped not only by who is affected by the technology, but also by who participates in developing and deploying it”.
It pointed out that women’s representation is lower in positions more closely associated with the development and deployment of AI models – referring to the engineers of the global ecosystem.
Sue Duke, LinkedIn’s vice president for global public policy, said: “Progress towards gender parity in leadership has stalled for a fourth consecutive year.
“While women are entering the workforce in almost equal numbers to men, we’re losing more and more of them on the journey to the top.
“Based on the current trajectory, girls born today will not see equal representation at the top in their lifetime.
“And the issue is even more pronounced for women working in AI roles.”
Ms Duke said it was possible to “change that trajectory” through actions such as supporting career breaks and non-linear career paths, and investing in skills and education particularly where gender parity is weakest.
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum ranked the UK as the fifth-highest performer in terms of gender parity in its 2026 report, out of 145 economies analysed.
Its parity score of 0.842 puts it behind Iceland, Finland, Norway and Namibia in the rankings.
A score of one indicates full gender parity and any score below means there is a gender gap – based on a framework measuring economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.
