In the same week a review reveals good progress for the representation of women on FTSE 350 boards, an alternative report suggests it may take the AIM market another 23 years to catch up at its current recruitment rate.

The annual FTSE Women Leaders Review shows 88% of FTSE 350 companies have met or are close to the voluntary 40% target for women on boards. Meanwhile, parallel research shows that AIM companies “lag” behind the FTSE 350 significantly, with women occupying only 16.8% of boardroom seats, a rise of just 0.4% on 2025.

Reflecting on the FTSE 350 review, chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves says the research “shows how far we’ve come”, with representation in the top 350 firms up from 10% in 2011.

“But there is still a long way to go as women remain underrepresented in key executive roles,” she says, adding that there should be “no ceiling on a woman’s ambition”.

“When [women] can participate fully at every level, organisations make better decisions, innovate more and perform more strongly, boosting our whole economy.”

FTSE 100 companies are slightly ahead of the FTSE 350 with 92% of boards currently on or near the 40% mark.

Of the FTSE 350 board seats, 49% are now occupied by women. But that success underlines slow progress for representation in senior executive roles.

The report says that “further progress is needed to replicate this success in executive leadership where women’s representation remains under-represented in the key executive board roles, chair and CEO in particular.”

As for AIM companies, only 27.3% have more than one female board director, while three-quarters have appointed only one or no women on the board at all, according to Indigo: Independent Governance, one of the organisations behind the research.

The men’s room

An alarming 37.2% of AIM boards have no women on their boards at all. Only 70 AIM companies have reached the 40% target and the number of AIM boards with two or more women has shrunk from 29% to 27%.

According to Bernadette Young, co-founder and director at Indigo, success in the FTSE 350 demonstrates that “deliberate action plans” are required among AIM organisations, or progress will remain “elusive”.

“The lack of progress on board gender diversity across the AIM market in recent years is staggering.

“At the current snail’s pace of progress, we will be heading into the second half of this century before AIM companies match the 40% target on female board representation already achieved by FTSE 350-listed peers.”

Beth Scaysbrook, co-founder and chief client officer at Addidat, the research house jointly behind the AIM figures, says: “Meaningful progress will require issuers, investors, Nomads, advisers and regulators across AIM to align around deliberate action.

“The FTSE 350 has shown that collective effort works. AIM now needs to decide whether it is prepared to do the same.”