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After making significant progress in recent years, women are beginning to see their march up the corporate ladder stalled by a still very apparent glass ceiling, new research from LinkedIn shows.<\/p>\n
The social media platform found the share of women being hired into leadership positions in the U.K. rose from 31.6% in 2016 to 37.8% in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, upward momentum has halted in the last two years. In 2024, the share of women hired into leadership positions had fallen to 37.1%.<\/p>\n
Ireland is the only European country assessed by LinkedIn where this share rose last year. But globally, the trend in the last couple of years has been downward.<\/p>\n
It would suggest that the easy wins for workplace diversity have been achieved, and parity will require either marginal gains or a major workplace revolution. It also highlights the stark reality faced by women during economic downturns.<\/p>\n
\u201cLinkedIn\u2019s data shows that the marginal progress made in recent years for women entering leadership roles is being eroded, as women pay the price for a cooling economy,\u201d said Sue Duke, LinkedIn\u2019s VP of global public policy & economic graph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe result? Female representation at the leadership level has risen by less than 1% in six years.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also longer-term barriers that stunt progress as a woman\u2019s career progresses, maternity care being the prime culprit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These barriers have proved difficult to completely tear down. Indeed, they\u2019re so pervasive that Gen Z women are unlikely to close the gender pay gap<\/a> before they retire.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGender pay parity remains out of sight for a 21-year-old woman entering the workforce today and the analysis suggests it will take over 45 years to close the gender pay gap in the U.K.,\u201d authors of a June report by PwC on the pay gap wrote.<\/p>\n LinkedIn data, though, would suggest there is hope for women in the AI revolution, in an optimistic take on the technology that often carries doomsday calls.<\/p>\n The platform predicts that the typical skills required for jobs globally will change by 68% fro what they are now by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the report\u2019s authors, the soft, interpersonal characteristics of those skills, like leadership and collaboration, are overwhelmingly possessed by women. On LinkedIn, women have a 28% higher share of soft skills than men.\u00a0<\/p>\n While it\u2019s a positive outlook on AI\u2019s ability to impact gender dynamics, women will need to be on guard from its negative effects. LinkedIn\u2019s Duke points out that men make up the majority of AI talent. Studies have shown women are also more at risk than men<\/a> from the technology.<\/p>\n \u201cOpportunities for women to make progress in their careers will disappear unless employers consider gender when upskilling to ensure that the workplace is transformed in a fair and equitable way.\u201d<\/p>\n U.K. Gen Z women unlikely to close gender pay gap before they retire, PwC research says<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Just 5% of the main skills job candidates need today will be the same in three years, McKinsey says: \u2018Companies aren\u2019t going to find perfect unicorns\u2019<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Single women are scraping by: Held down by the wage gap and inflation, they struggle to build wealth or emergency savings<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nAI transformation<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Further reading<\/h2>\n
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