UK companies are making significant strides in gender equity, though challenges remain in achieving leadership parity. The 2025 Women in Work Gender Equity Measure Report, developed with LinkedIn, shows a record 19% rise since 2024 in the number of the UK’s largest 400 companies meeting gender equity benchmarks. A total of 121 companies, spanning 24 sectors, now meet these standards.

Despite more companies making strides, barriers remain. The data suggests that nine in ten male CEOs are replaced by men, compared with a fifty-fifty split when female CEOs step down. Three quarters of UK companies have a lower proportion of women in leadership than in their overall workforce. The findings indicate women fall behind at every stage of their career, with career progression stalling most sharply between ages 30 and 50, when caregiving responsibilities are typically at their peak.

Published this week, the report assesses companies on three metrics: meaningful representation of women on boards, closing the gender pay gap, and having transparent and publicly accessible parental leave policies. For the second consecutive year, more than half of the 400 companies analysed have made parental leave policies public and easy to find, a 22% increase on last year. Six more companies now report a lowest mean or median hourly pay gap of less than 1%.

The number of companies with equal executive boards, pay gaps under 1%, and transparent parental policies has doubled this year, with ten companies topping the list including AG Barr, Biffa, Britvic, Carlsberg, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, Lush Retail, Octopus Energy, Reckitt Benckiser, Rolls-Royce Holding and Spirax Sarco.

Wider analysis of over 40 million UK LinkedIn members across 10,000 businesses highlights three drivers of progress. Flexible working models show a one to two percentage point higher share of female leadership in businesses with more than half of employees working remotely or in a hybrid arrangement compared with those with fewer. Companies that support career breaks for caregiving are 27% more likely to have gender-balanced or female-led teams.

The GEM data shows that the food and drink industry leads on low pay gaps, with over half of companies tracked reporting under 1%. Insurance, electronics, fashion and beauty have the highest number of companies with women representing more than a third on boards. Telecoms and insurance have the highest number of publicly published parental policies, with more than 90% of firms making their policies accessible.

Mariella Frostrup, co-founder of Women in Work Summit, said: “At Women in Work, we call in those leading the way, confident that others will follow. And thanks to our partnership with LinkedIn, we now have clear evidence that breaking stereotypes, embracing real flexibility, and supporting caregiving directly drives female leadership. We know our work is far from done – and we will do everything we can to continue to shift the dial and make meaningful progress for women in the workplace.”

Sue Duke, vice-president, global public policy and managing director for EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn, added: “Women are entering the workforce in equal numbers but remain blocked from advancing. CEO succession shows it starkly: when male CEOs step down, nine in ten successors are men, but when female CEOs leave, replacements split fifty-fifty. The problem isn’t just the pipeline – women are qualified and ready; the issue is systemic barriers that hold them back, and that costs us all dearly.”

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