The proportion of women in both executive and non-executive roles on energy employers’ boards is now 29%, unchanged from 2023’s figure, the analysis shows. Only 16% of executive directors are women, also unchanged from last year, while just three of the businesses’ boards (4%) have a female chair and only four companies of the 80 analysed (5%) have a woman as CEO.  

In addition, 20% of the 80 UK energy companies still have no female representation at board level (a marginal improvement from 21% last year) and almost three-quarters (74%) have no female board directors.  

The figures, in PfW’s Annual State of the Nation report on diversity at the UK’s leading energy businesses, representing more than 190,000 people, suggest that the industry continues to find it challenging to advance gender representation in leadership and key decision-making roles. PfW’s report issues a renewed call for an acceleration of progress towards gender balance, noting that evidence shows that boards and management will be less effective without this.

Although the past 12 months saw no progress on representation at board level in the UK energy sector’s leading companies, the analysis does find some positive improvement at a wider leadership level among businesses’ senior management. In 2024, 34% of leadership roles (defined as executive committee level and their direct reports) are held by women, up by 3% from 31% in 2023. While this is below PfW’s 40% target for women’s representation by 2030, the report finds that continued progress at the current pace would see this target achieved.  

Some 30% of companies assessed by PfW and Bain & Company (24 out of 80) have reached or surpassed the goal of 40% female representation at board levels, while a further 17% (12 companies) had reached 40% women holding roles as executive directors, the report notes.

Marginal improvement at middle management level is also reported in the analysis, with 32% of such roles now held by women – slightly up from 2023’s 31% figure.  

Unveiling the statistics, Katie Jackson, Chair of POWERful Women, said: ‘As we mark our 10th anniversary, POWERful Women can celebrate the progress that’s been made since 2014, when women occupied just 9% of all energy board seats and 5% of the executive director roles. We are proud to have achieved a three-fold increase within a decade and our analysis shows that it’s possible to achieve gender parity, with leaders already paving the way. But we call on everyone to take action to appoint, develop and retain the diverse female talent that’s crucial to delivering a successful, equitable and affordable energy transition. We will continue to challenge the sector by tracking the data and will continue to support companies to overcome the remaining, most difficult challenges to a gender-balanced industry.’

POWERful Women (PfW) is a professional initiative working to achieve a gender-balanced, diverse and inclusive energy sector in the UK to meet the needs of a net zero future, which is supported by the Energy Institute.