Today WACL is calling on the marketing, media and communications industry to come together to tackle gender inequality and improve the number of women in senior roles. WACL is launching an industry best practice guide following research and insight from LinkedIn, which found that:
- Women make up 50% of the sector’s workforce in the UK, but only 36% of leadership roles, resulting in a 14% “leadership gap”
- Women do not dominate leadership roles in any of the industries that make up the sector in the UK
In 2017 the members of WACL voted to refresh its purpose; to accelerate gender equality in communications and marketing. This gender parity initiative and its ongoing partnership with LinkedIn is in line with this ambition and WACL is now asking businesses to pledge support for a set of best practice commitments.
These include setting gender equality goals and ensuring a diverse pipeline of talent with proactive recruitment processes and policies. These commitments have been welcomed by a number of industry trade bodies, including the Ad Association and NABS.
To inform these commitments, LinkedIn explored insights gleaned from the anonymised profile data of 597,000 UK members who work within the Marketing, Media and Communications (MMC) industry. This includes professionals working in a range of industries within the MMC sector, including newspapers, publishing, market research, marketing & advertising, public relations & communications, writing & editing, online media, and printing.
Reassuringly, women working across the MMC sector as a whole comprise 50% of those 597,000 LinkedIn profiles. However, when looking at leadership levels, there is still a long way to go, with women in only 36% of roles at Director level and above - resulting in a 14% “leadership gap”. In contrast to other sectors within UK businesses, the number of women in MMC roles overall compares favourably to Finance (37%), Software & IT (29%) and Manufacturing (24%), but lags behind Education, where 53% of roles are filled by women.
LinkedIn’s insights reveal that hiring rates show the route of the representation bias. In 2018, women are being hired into only 40% of leadership positions in the UK’s MMC industry. However, over the last ten years, this figure has seen a 19% increase, while overall female recruitment into the industry has increased by 10%.
Pippa Glucklich, CEO of Amplifi UK, Dentsu Aegis Network and President of WACL said:
“This study, in partnership with LinkedIn is the first of its kind to look at all sectors across the communications and marketing industry. It’s no surprise that the study has uncovered a gap in the number of women in senior positions. At WACL, our purpose is to accelerate gender equality in this industry, so having a benchmark of where we are and how far we have to go is critical in our mission. As WACL approaches its centenary in five-year’s time, we will continue to track this progress and provide support for, and campaign with, women to have equal opportunity and pay in our industry”
Josh Graff, UK Country Manager & VP EMEA at LinkedIn, commented:
“I’m thrilled we have joined forces with WACL to use LinkedIn’s unique labour market insights to provide an in-depth analysis of the gender balance across the UK’s marketing, media and communications industry. This report reveals the scale of the issue we face and demonstrates how much more needs to be done. By learning from each other, sharing information which can help tackle gender equality and committing to WACL’s best-practice guide, we will ensure that everyone in our industry has an equal opportunity to thrive.”
Lisa Thomas, Vice President of WACL and Chief Brand Officer of the Virgin Group, said:
“It’s unacceptable that gender inequality continues to exist in marketing and communications. Too few women get to the top and we can do much more to promote equality across the board – I would urge leaders across the sector to support the WACL commitments and bring about systemic change. We need to ensure our creative output, and our internal culture, mirrors the diverse world we live in. This is top of our agenda at Virgin and by working together we have the power to bring about societal change by influencing representation norms. This isn’t simply about closing the gender gap, it’s about a fundamental shift in attitudes for the future.”
Syl Saller, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer at Diageo, said:
“Today we are calling on the marketing, media and communications industries to invest in female talent and close the leadership gap. The evidence is clear - diverse teams produce more creative work and diverse businesses perform better. It’s time for everyone to work together to create more gender equal workplaces – because when we do, all boats rise.”
LinkedIn Learning’s Unconscious Bias training course, which has been specially unlocked for two months, is available here.