The UK financial services sector still has a significant gender pay gap and underrepresentation of women in leadership roles despite decades of action plans for improvement including the UK’s Women in Finance Charter. Robust strategies are lacking, although women now account for a growing proportion of banking and investment clients, yet this shift is not mirrored in decision-making roles.
Evidence reveals that women in the sector earn approximately 78 pence for every pound earned by men – a 22% pay gap. This disparity is nearly double the national average. Investment banking exhibits some of the most pronounced gaps; for instance, Peel Hunt reported a median hourly pay gap of 53.3% in 2024, with women occupying only 6.8% of the highest-paid positions.
Leadership representation demonstrates a lack of planning when it comes to building equitable leadership pipelines with figures in 2024 revealing that women held 36% of senior roles in the financial services sector, a negligible increase from previous years . Notably, the number of female CEOs in FTSE 350 companies declined from 20 in 2023 to 19 in 2024, revealing a lack of sustainable and structural change in interventions.
The barriers to progress are intersectional, complex and a reflection of wider socio-cultural and political norms that are inherently biased when it comes to gender. For example, company restructuring and low senior management turnover limit opportunities for women to ascend to leadership roles. This is compounded by a lack of sponsorship of women by senior executives to support their potential. This forms part of entrenched corporate cultures which hinder rather than enable gender parity in the leadership pipeline. Progress has also been affected by a lack of audits to continually improve initiatives that promote equity.
Some argue that to address challenges, a multifaceted approach needs to be implemented – sooner rather than later. These include transparent pay structures, commitment to salary negotiations, advocacy for talent management programmes that represent intersections of women (e.g. gender combined with class, heritage groups, disability), enhanced inclusive recruitment including audits of recruiters and decision-making, flexible working models and integrating leadership training for women across the different levels of education. None of this would produce a consistent result unless there is broad spectrum commitment across organisations to support these measures and demonstrate this by publishing monitoring data alongside company brochures, profiles and high-level websites.
The business case for equality—its link to innovation, better decision-making, and profit—is often cited as the key driver for workplace parity. However, there are wider, generational issues. As we reflect on the state of gender equality in finance, it is worth asking: what is the deeper loss? What are the costs to knowledge, to culture, to ethical leadership when women’s voices are undervalued? The philosopher Miranda Fricker (2007) calls this epistemic injustice—when people are not believed or not given the same authority to speak, think, or know because of who they are. When women are systematically underrepresented in leadership, the industry risks repeating its own blind spots, failing to recognise risk, value, or innovation through a truly comprehensive lens. Gender equity, then, is not only about pay—it is about the right to be seen as a knower, a leader, a shaper of institutions. Until finance fully welcomes women into positions of influence, it continues to operate with one eye closed.
Sources
Bloomberg (2025). Women in UK Finance Still Earn a Fifth Less Than Men. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/women-in-uk-finance-still-earn-a-fifth-less-than-men
Financial News London (2025). Peel Hunt Reports Worst Gender Pay Gap in UK Investment Banking. Retrieved from: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/peel-hunt-reports-worst-gender-pay-gap-in-uk-investment-banking-d739eb33
Fricker, Miranda (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.
Reuters (2025). UK Finance Industry Slow to Hire Women into Top Roles, Report Finds. Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-finance-industry-slow-hire-women-top-roles-report-finds-2025-04-03/
The CFO (2025). Are We Failing Women in Finance?. Retrieved from: https://the-cfo.io/2025/03/07/are-we-failing-women-in-finance-strategies-for-closing-the-gender-gap/
The Times (2025). Talent is Everywhere, But Opportunity Isn’t. Retrieved from: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/talent-is-everywhere-but-opportunity-isnt-396qwz9lm
UK Government Equalities Office (2024). Closing Your Gender Pay Gap: Employer Toolkit. Retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-pay-gap-reporting-guidance-for-employers/closing-your-gender-pay-gap
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