Women made up less than one in four new senior financial services leaders appointments

Just 24.7% of new senior leaders appointed in the UK’s financial services industry in 2024/25 were women, according to new research by Fox & Partners, the employment and partnership law specialists.

The percentage of new female senior leaders in financial services has declined marginally for two years in a row, from 25.5% in 2022/23 to 25.2% in 2023/24.

The data shows that in 2024/25 just 14.2% of appointed CEOs in financial services and 20% of CFOs are women.

Fox & Partners’ data encompasses 28,000 appointments of senior leaders in financial services over the past five years and 1,380 in the last year. It covers a wide range of senior roles in financial services, such as CEOs, Executive Directors and Chief Risk Officers through to non-exec roles such as Senior Independent Directors.

Nevertheless, while the percentage of new female senior leaders being appointed by financial services businesses remains low, it does suggest some progress. Research last year by Fox & Partners found women made up just 18.6% of all senior leaders in the sector. The figure stood at just 9.1% for CEOs.

Catriona Watt, Partner at Fox & Partners, said “It seems that progress in improving gender diversity at the senior level in financial services has stalled. Things are getting better, but nowhere near quickly enough.”

“Regulators have long argued that better diversity at senior level brings broader perspectives, more robust decision-making and better performance overall. For financial services businesses to resist leaning into that is disappointing.

“A few years ago, a lot of people assumed that barriers to increased female representation in financial services would gradually fall. That hasn’t happened, and it’s a big reason why women remain sharply under-represented.”

In recent years the number of women being appointed to senior leadership roles in the financial services sector may have been impacted by political pressure to reduce emphasis on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes amongst some US-owned financial institutions. Banks in the US, including Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, have scaled back their DEI programmes in the last two years. In the UK, Lloyds Bank is widely reported to have reduced diversity targets from its senior management bonus schemes.