Women remain underrepresented at the top of UK business. The 2024 FTSE Women Leaders Review reported that women hold 42.1% of board seats in FTSE 350 companies, a record high, but only 32.9% of executive committee roles and 11% of chief executive posts. At the same time, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures for 2023 show that median hourly pay for all employees is 14.3% lower for women than men, narrowing to 7.7% among full-time employees. For a fuller picture of women in the UK economy, see our Women in Business: Key UK Facts page.

These numbers are not just a measure of fairness. They measure missed commercial opportunity. Companies with diverse leadership teams are more likely to innovate, manage risk and understand customers. At Prowess, we have supported women in business since 2001, and we know that attracting senior female talent requires more than good intentions. Here are four evidence-based ways to attract more women to senior positions in your business.

1. Reconsider your job advertisements

Your job advert is often the first signal a candidate receives about your culture. If the imagery, tone and requirements suggest a male-dominated environment, many women will simply scroll past.

Start with the visuals. Including images of women in leadership and mixed-gender teams on your careers pages and adverts signals that people like them already succeed in your organisation. Then look at the language. Guidance from Acas and the CIPD highlights that adverts heavy on words such as “dominant”, “competitive” and “rock star” tend to attract more male applicants, while language that emphasises collaboration, growth and purpose appeals more broadly. You do not need to strip out ambition; just describe the role in terms of outcomes and teamwork rather than swagger.

Finally, trim the essential criteria. Many candidates read long essential-criteria lists as hard thresholds rather than guides, which can discourage strong applicants who would otherwise thrive in the role. List only what is truly essential and separate nice-to-haves into a “desirable” section. This small change can widen your applicant pool without lowering standards.

• Use gender-neutral job titles and pronouns.
• Run your advert through a gender-decoding tool to spot biased language.
• Limit “essential” criteria to five or six must-haves.
• Showcase existing female leaders and employee networks.

2. Offer competitive, transparent pay

Pay is one of the clearest indicators of whether a company values equality. With salary information increasingly visible on sites such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn, and with larger employers required to publish gender pay gap data, candidates can quickly spot organisations that fall behind.

The ONS reported in 2023 that the gender pay gap for all employees stands at 14.3%, and at 7.7% for full-time employees. While the gap has narrowed, it remains significant, especially at senior level, where bonus and long-term incentive structures can widen it further. Benchmark your senior salaries against the market, publish salary bands in job adverts where possible, and carry out an equal pay audit to check that men and women are being rewarded fairly for equivalent work. If you employ 250 or more people, make sure you meet your Gender Pay Gap Reporting 2026 obligations.

Transparency also builds trust. When women see that a role is advertised with a clear salary range and a credible path to progression, they are more likely to believe the organisation will treat them fairly once they are inside.

• Advertise the salary band rather than asking candidates to negotiate blind.
• Review bonus, share schemes and performance criteria for gender bias.
• Publish your gender pay gap narrative and action plan if you are required to report.
• Train hiring managers to make fair, evidence-based pay offers.

3. Change the way you interview

Even the best advert will fail if the interview process feels unwelcoming or biased. A senior woman who walks into a room of all-male interviewers may reasonably wonder whether she will ever belong at the top table.

Make sure your interview panels include senior women and people from a range of backgrounds. This signals that leadership is not exclusively male and helps reduce the influence of individual bias. Then standardise the process: ask every candidate the same set of job-related questions and score answers against pre-agreed criteria. Structured interviews are one of the most effective ways to improve diversity outcomes because they focus on evidence rather than gut feeling.

Consider asking candidates to bring a portfolio, case study or short presentation that demonstrates their impact. This is especially helpful for candidates who are less comfortable with self-promotion, allowing them to show what they have achieved rather than simply talking about it.

• Use diverse interview panels for every senior vacancy.
• Ask structured, competency-based questions and score answers consistently.
• Offer work-sample tasks or case studies to assess ability directly.
• Provide unconscious bias training for everyone involved in hiring.

4. Build flexibility into senior roles

Traditional full-time, office-based leadership models exclude a huge pool of experienced women, particularly those with caring responsibilities. Yet flexibility is not a perk reserved for junior staff. It is a business strategy that improves retention and productivity at every level.

Since April 2024, employees in Great Britain have had the right to request flexible working from their first day in a job. Forward-thinking employers are going further by advertising senior roles as open to part-time, job-share, hybrid or compressed-hours arrangements unless there is a genuine business reason not to. The ONS 2023 Time Use Survey found that women in the UK continue to spend significantly more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men, so offering real flexibility at senior level can remove one of the biggest barriers to progression. For more detail, read our guide to Flexible Working Rights UK 2026.

Be explicit. If a role can be done flexibly, say so in the advert and discuss it at interview. If you cannot offer remote work, consider whether core hours, reduced travel or a four-day week could still make the position viable for a wider range of candidates.

• Advertise senior roles with flexible working options as standard.
• Consider job shares and part-time arrangements for board and executive positions.
• Make it clear that flexibility will not limit promotion or pay progression.
• Support returners with programmes that help women move back into senior roles after a career break.

Attract more women to senior positions through consistent action

Attracting more women to senior positions is not about tokenism or one-off campaigns. It requires consistent changes to how you advertise, pay, assess and support leaders. Start with the four areas above, measure the results, and keep refining your approach. The businesses that get this right will not only advance workplace equality; they will also secure a stronger, more resilient leadership pipeline.