If you’ve ever been the only woman on a board, or one of just two, you might have seen the headlines talking about the percentage of women on boards in the FTSE and wondered: what about the rest?
How does boardroom diversity look across UK SMEs, public sector boards, or other organisations beyond the FTSE 350? And what’s the state of gender diversity on boards in the wider UK?
To answer these questions, we analysed our own data on women in the boardroom and boardroom gender diversity across different types of UK organisations (excluding the FTSE 350 and top 50 private companies).
In March 2026, we hosted a webinar exploring our research on diversity on boards and sharing insights into how women leaders are represented in UK boardrooms. The session included breakout discussions on what could shift these numbers further and improve boardroom gender diversity more broadly.
Watch the full webinar here, and explore the key stats on boardroom diversity and women on boards below: (edited)
The stats
Chairs (% women)
• Dynamic Boards last 50 private companies – 27% women • Dynamic Boards last 50 public organisations – 49% women • Largest 50 private companies – 22% women • FTSE 350 – 17% women
% of Women CEOs
• Dynamic Boards last 50 private companies – 21% women • Dynamic Boards last 50 public organisations – 24% women • Largest 50 private companies – 23% women • FTSE 350 – 8% women
Average % of women on boards
• Dynamic Boards last 50 private companies – 31% women • Dynamic Boards last 50 public organisations – 45% women • Largest 50 private companies – 30% women • FTSE 350 – 42% women • AIM – 16.8% women
% of boards that are at least 40% women
• Dynamic Boards last 50 private companies – 36% (meaning 36% of boards have 40% of more women) • Dynamic Boards last 50 public organisations – 70% • Largest 50 private companies – 33% • FTSE 350 – 69% • AIM – 11.5%
% adverts mentioning women
An example would be using a phrase like “we’d particularly encourage women to apply for their role”.
📉 Trend over time: 2020 – 15% 2021 – 18% 2022 – 15% 2023 – 14% 2024 – 8% 2025 – 8% 2026 – 7%
Data sources
- Dynamic Boards last 50 private companies: analysing the last 50 private companies we advertised on Dynamic Boards.
- Dynamic Boards last 50 public organisations: NHS trusts, public sector bodies and housing associations.
- Largest 50 private companies & FTSE 350 data is from the FTSE Women Leaders Review
- AIM data is from Indigo Governance ‘Gender diversity in AIM report’ here
- Advertising data from 2020-2026 included over 7000 adverts listed on DynamicBoards.co.uk
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