The 2026 FTSE Women Leaders Review: From seats at the table to real power
The 2026 FTSE Women Leaders Review that has come out earlier this year tells a story of impressive progress on paper and stubborn gaps where real power still sits. Women now hold around 43% of FTSE 350 board roles, up from under 10% in 2011 and nearly 90% of companies are at or close to the 40% target for women on boards. Yet beneath that headline success, the executive “engine room” looks very different. Women hold only about 36% of wider leadership roles and just 15% of executive director positions, with fewer than 1 in 10 FTSE 350 CEOs being women.
Progress into the roles that truly shape strategy, capital and culture remains painfully slow. In the FTSE 350, women make up about 17% of Chairs, 8% of CEOs and 21% of Finance Directors/CFOs. Almost one in five companies still have no woman in any of the four key roles: Chair, Senior Independent Director, CEO or CFO. At the same time, women are heavily “siloed” into functions that are not classic CEO pipelines, for example, over 80% of HR Director roles and more than half of Company Secretary roles are held by women, while only around a fifth of Finance Director and CIO posts are female. The message is clear: we have improved representation around the board table, but access to the real levers of profit, risk and decision‑making is lagging badly.
These gaps are not about a lack of capable women; they are about the system we have built around leadership. Research linked to the Review highlights several reinforcing barriers. We keep fishing in the same pond. Boards too often default to candidates who have done it before: sitting or former CEOs, CFOs and Chairs with very similar CVs. That narrows the field and locks in historic exclusion instead of opening to new talent and different leadership routes. We privilege comfort over competence. Selection decisions still lean heavily on familiar profiles rather than an objective view of skills, behaviours and potential. Rather than asking “who has the capabilities to lead this organisation next?”, many processes start with “who looks like the leaders we have had before?”. Unconscious bias is still doing its work. Despite years of training, attitudes about what a “real leader” looks like, tough, always available, unhindered by care, still shape decisions and feedback behind closed doors.
Female leaders also face different scrutiny. Evidence suggests women CEOs and senior executives are judged on a broader and more personal set of criteria than men, including how likeable they are, how they present or even their family status and that they often face higher expectations and quicker exit if performance dips. The economics of care derail careers too. In the UK, the high cost of childcare and the uneven distribution of unpaid care push many families into decisions that sideline women’s careers at the very point when leadership tracks accelerate. For roles like CFO and CEO, where long hours, travel and constant visibility are still often treated as non‑negotiable, the trade‑offs can become unsustainable.
So how do we get out of this cycle?
The 2026 Review proves that targets, transparency and sustained attention can move the numbers at board level. The next phase demands something harder: redesigning how we define, find and support top leaders, particularly in CFO and CEO pipelines, while embedding diversity into governance in a way that survives political headwinds.
Businesses need to rethink how they build the CEO and CFO pipeline by treating key P&L, finance and operational roles as clear stepping stones to those top jobs, with a strong expectation that these feeder roles become gender‑balanced over time. That means deliberately rotating high‑potential women into profit driving positions and tracking those moves as rigorously as you track financial KPIs.
Sponsorship and networking are critical because they help talented women gain visibility, access to influential decision-makers and advocacy for stretch assignments and promotions that might otherwise stay out of reach. In leadership tracks where informal relationships often shape opportunity, strong sponsors and networks can help counteract the hidden barriers and higher scrutiny described above.
Companies also need to broaden the pond for top roles by actively considering credible first time CEOs, CFOs and Chairs with strong experience in adjacent or international roles. That means working with search partners who can tap into diverse networks. Firms need to move away from hiring on comfort CVs and instead make appointment decisions for CEO, CFO and Chair roles based on a clear, transparent view of the skills and behaviours the business needs, then use that profile rigorously in interviews and assessments. Achieving this also requires boards to be open to the expertise and challenge provided by search firms, resisting the instinct to rely solely on familiar candidates and established networks.
Finally, companies need to treat care and flexibility as core infrastructure for senior roles, not nice‑to‑have perks, by offering flexibility, designing jobs that allow for non‑linear careers and showcasing men and women who use these options without penalty.
At Partner Executive we think that the FTSE story shows that when leaders care enough to act, change is possible without quotas or legislation. In just over a decade, UK boards have gone from lagging behind to near parity on gender. But board seats are not the finish line. The test for the next decade is whether we are willing to redesign the CEO, CFO and Chair pipeline, challenge who we consider ready and build leadership models that do not quietly assume an unburdened man at the top. Real equality will be measured not only by who sits at the table, but by who sets the agenda. That is the leadership challenge now facing every FTSE board and executive team.
