POWERful Women (PfW) has collaborated with US-based management consultants Bain & Company to release their Annual State of the Nation report for 2024.
The annual report examines gender diversity in the UK energy sector, and it’s ongoing progress. The partnership meant that Bain & Company could provide PfW with up-to-date statistics on female representation in the sector, having assessed 80 large UK energy companies.
The full report also provides takeaways from the data, providing readers with key guidance to implement in their own companies and DEI policies.
Highlights
The report found that female representation was coming to a standstill, concluding that the sector may be struggling to recruit women into high-tier decision-making roles.
- Only 29% of board members were women, and 16% of executive directors were women – both figures the same as 2023 numbers.
- 1/3 of companies (4%) had a female chair, and only ¼ (5%) had a female CEO.
If the sector does not invest in better female representation boards, and by proxy their companies, will not perform as effectively as possible.
However, some progress was noticed:
- 34% of leadership roles were held by women – an increase of 31% of 2023’s figures
- 32% of middle management roles were held by women – an increase of 31% of 2023’s figures
- Notably, only 31/80 companies provided data on middle management, decreasing the accuracy of the data.
Why study representation?
It is widely reported that diverse companies perform better than those which don’t invest in inclusivity.
A prior survey of 6,000 respondents by Bain & Company notes that inclusive companies are three times more likely to feel included at work and perform at their full potential, with diverse and inclusive teams having 4x the amount of innovative capacity.
Research from Forbes also demonstrates that business decisions by inclusive teams are more effective up to 87% of the time and make those decisions 2x faster with ½ the number of meetings. This is due to the diversity of ideas and experiences contributing to the thought processes and planning.
