Women in business are building momentum — and business is better for it

As International Women’s Day approaches on Sunday 8 March, the most credible account of women in business is neither triumphant nor downbeat. It is more substantial than that.

Across the UK economy, women are more visible in leadership, more present in boardrooms, and more likely to be shaping careers on their own terms than they were even a few years ago. At the same time, the barriers that slow progress have not disappeared; they have simply become more concentrated around senior pay, executive power, access to capital, and the practical realities of unpaid care.

The direction of travel, though, is unmistakable. Women now hold 43% of FTSE 350 board positions and 35.9% of leadership roles, according to the latest FTSE Women Leaders Review, a level of representation that would have seemed remote little more than a decade ago. The challenge is that progress still thins out at the top. Women account for just 8% of CEO roles and 21% of finance director positions across the FTSE 350, which is a reminder that while the pipeline is stronger, the final steps into the most powerful jobs remain harder than they should be.

That unevenness is also visible in earnings. The UK gender pay gap for full-time employees stood at 6.9% in April 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics, but widened to 15.2% among top earners. Those figures point to where corporate systems are still falling short. When women are well represented in the workforce but less visible in the highest-paid posts, businesses are looking at a progression issue rather than a participation one.

One of the clearest messages from the material supplied for this piece is that women are not waiting to be told what support looks like. They are asking for it in practical terms, and often offering it in return. Research from organisation development consultancy h2h found that 74% of women in the workforce want mentoring, while only 41% are currently receiving it, and 76% want to learn from older colleagues. That gap between demand and delivery is revealing. It suggests that one of the most effective ways to accelerate progress is not to invent a new language of inclusion, but to put more substance behind the mechanisms that already work: mentoring, sponsorship, coaching, and clear pathways to leadership.

Sue Hitchmough, Product Owner at Mercator Digital, describes the effect with refreshing clarity: “When I first started out in business, I felt that I had to perfectly navigate the landscape to be taken seriously, as it was a male dominated industry. I was afraid to ask for help, thinking it would make me look ‘weak’, but I started connecting with other women in the company and industry, where we shared advice and encouragement, offered our time for chats and mentorship and everything changed.”

That kind of support matters because it changes more than confidence. It changes access. Formal mentoring can help, but many careers still move forward through sponsorship — the recommendation, the introduction, the person already inside the room who is prepared to vouch for someone else.

Roqiya Hassan, User Researcher at Mercator Digital, puts it plainly: “Pivoting into tech was tough! No amount of applications, paid memberships, or great work experience got me through the doors I wanted. What did was the UCD professionals with a foot in the industry who vouched for me and made magic it happen. When I thanked them, they simply said ‘someone helped me too, once.. That’s the beauty of sharing, sometimes you gain and other times you give.’”

The barriers become harder to ignore when money enters the frame. The British Business Bank says just 2p of every £1 of UK venture capital funding goes to female-founded businesses, while only 13% of senior people on UK venture capital investment teams are women. The Department for Business and Trade has also said that investing in female and ethnic minority-led businesses could add 13% to the value of the UK equity market. In other words, the case for backing women is not confined to fairness or representation. It is increasingly a question of growth, productivity, and whether capital is being allocated with enough ambition.

The same principle runs through day-to-day management. Hannah MacKechnie, cofounder and managing director of Radfield Home Care, makes the commercial logic explicit: “When you give people time, guidance and trust, standards rise and businesses become stronger.”

Women in business do not need to be cast only as overcoming adversity, even if adversity remains real. They are already advancing, leading, building companies, and reshaping sectors across the economy. The task for employers, investors, and senior leaders is to make that progress easier to sustain and wider in its reach. When support is treated as part of business infrastructure rather than an annual talking point, the return is not symbolic. It is measurable, lasting, and already in view.