- We found that notable progress has been made in increasing the proportion of women in the junior and mid-level cohort, although progress at the senior levels has been slower.
- 12% of senior investment roles in the UK are held by women, while 3% of senior investment roles are held by women from ethnically diverse backgrounds demonstrating there is more work to do.
- Across both investment and non-investment roles, women now hold 20% of senior roles in UK offices.
- Significant step up in the number of firms sharing data on gender (45%) and ethnicity (73%) demonstrating an increased commitment to transparency.
Read the 2023 report
Companion resources
Gender data
The proportion of senior level roles held by women in UK firms, working specifically in investment teams, is 11% (including European offices). When UK offices alone are considered, this figure rises slightly to 12%.
At the lower level, the number of women in mid-level and junior-level investment roles across UK and European offices grew this year, by 3% (to 23%) and 4% (to 37%) respectively.
Smaller firms in the UK, predominantly in VC, have a higher proportion of women in mid and senior roles in investment teams, however they also have a higher percentage of all-male investment teams. This is due, in part, to the small number of employees in these firms and relatively static workforces.
As the pool of female talent at all levels grow, it’s expected that a domino effect will see more women being made partner, who will in turn act as role models, helping to grow recruitment even further.
Ethnicity data
Across the PE and VC sectors, 26% of firms who reported data are made up of an exclusively white workforce.
The number of firms providing ethnicity data has grown dramatically this year, up by 73%, which shows a greater willingness to act on and improve diversity. This has meant that the BVCA is more accurately able to measure the ethnic makeup of PE and VC workforces, although our ethnicity sample is by no means the whole industry.
Encouraging transparency
While this data on both gender and ethnicity provides the industry with a foundation to work from, both the BVCA and Level 20 firmly believe that further transparency is necessary to drive progress and the conversation must continue to address the findings.
As such, both organisations have committed to encourage firms to provide this data going forward for future progress reports, using the tools published alongside this report, to support openness and improvements on this issue.
The report also contains a set of industry recommendations from the BVCA and Level 20 aimed at supporting further progress, including fostering an organisational culture that promotes diversity of background, experience and thought, focusing on fairness of progression pathways and reviewing and enhancing recruitment processes to attract more women and people from different backgrounds.