Research has consistently shown that equitable, diverse and inclusive workplaces are more productive and innovative, and achieve better outcomes.

Studies also show that systemic barriers have a negative effect on the attraction, retention and progression of women in academic and research careers.

The loss of such expertise is a waste of knowledge, skills and investment, and impacts our nation’s research performance and productivity.

To ensure we benefit from our top-quality academic and research talent, we need to ensure gender balance and diversity throughout the academic pipeline.

SAGE considers gender balance to be 40% women, 40% men, 20% people of any gender. Applying a 40:40:20 approach is inclusive of those identifying outside of the gender binary, which is a key principle of Athena Swan. Compared to a 50:50 approach, it also better accommodates minor fluctuations and is more realistic when working with small numbers.

Data from the Department of Education in 2024 show that women continue to be underrepresented at senior levels in almost every field.

chart visualization
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. Women make up less than 30% of academic staff at all levels except Level B, where just over 34.6% of academic staff are women. The proportion of women increases slightly from Level A to B, but then decreases again from Level C onwards. Between 2020 and 2024, the gender gap narrowed very slightly at all levels and particularly at Level C where there was a 10 percentage point increase in women’s representation.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. In 2020, men outnumbered women at all levels. However, in 2024, women outnumber men at Level A, accounting for 55.9% of staff FTE. Although there are more men than women at Levels B, C and above, the gap has narrowed since 2020. Women now represent almost 44% of staff FTE at all levels B and above with no decrease in their proportion at more senior levels.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. In 2024, women outnumber men at Levels A and B, accounting for approximately 60% of staff FTE, and the gap has widened since 2020. At Level C and above, men were previously slightly overrepresented, but the gap has narrowed since 2020. Proportions are now almost equal at level C, but men still outnumber women Above Level C.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. Women outnumber men at all levels in 2024 and have now overtaken men at Above Level C. The gap in favour of women has widened at all Levels since 2020. However, the proportion of women still declines from above 75% at Levels A and B to 65% at Level C and 53% above C.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. Although the proportion of women decreases as level increases, women outnumber men at all levels. Gender balance is never achieved, though it is close at Above Level C where women represent 61.4% of staff FTE. The gender gap in favour of women very slightly narrowed between 2020 and 2024 at all Levels.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. The gender gap has narrowed at Level C so now the gender ratio is close to 50:50 at Level C and below. Men still make up more than 60% of Above Level C academics, and there has been little change in representation at this Level since 2020.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. There has been little change in representation since 2020 and women still outnumber men at Level C and below. The proportion of women decreases gradually with level. There is still a slight gender gap in favour of men at Above Level C, but this narrowed in 2024.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. In 2024, men still outnumber women at all levels and gender balance is not achieved at any level. The proportion of women has decreased slightly at Level A but has increased by around 6 percentage points at Levels B and C and by around 2 percentage points at Above Level C.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. Women slightly outnumber men, though there is gender balance at all levels. The proportion of women decreases gradually from Level A to Above Level C. There’s little change in the gender gap from 2020 to 2024, with the biggest change being that 50:50 representation has now been achieved at Above Level C.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. In 2024, there are more women than men at Levels A and B. The proportion is nearly 50:50 at Level C, but Above Level C the proportion of women sharply declines to only 34.2%. Since 2020, the proportion of women has increased at all Levels, except Level A where the proportion has remained constant.
Line chart with 4 lines. The horizontal axis has 4 levels: Level A academics, Level B academics, Level C academics, Above Level C academics. The vertical axis shows percentage of gender at each level. The category legend has 4 items: 2020 percentage men, 2020 percentage women, 2024 percentage men, 2024 percentage women. Men outnumber women at all levels. There is gender balance at Level A and B in both years. The proportion of women decreases slightly from Level A to B and more sharply from Level B onwards. The proportion of women at each level increased between 2020 and 2024.

Data Notes

  • 2024 data were obtained by request from the Department of Education. 2020 data were extracted from “Full-time Equivalence of Staff by Academic Organisational Groups”, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Staff Time Series. The data were viewed as full-time equivalents by Academic Organisational Unit (AOU), by current duties classification, by year, by gender. All work contract types (full-time and fractional full-time) and current duties terms (tenurial term, limited term, other term) were included.
  • Discipline areas are based on AOU Groups, as defined by the Department of Education.
  • As these charts were based on AOU staff data, only staff with “teaching only” or a “teaching and research” function are included.
  • Less than 0.4% of people in the Department of Education dataset identified their gender as ‘non-binary or different term’. As such, we have not included this data in our charts but can provide this detail on request.
  • For the complete data notes, please refer to Department of Education Higher Education Statistics.

Version history

  • The charts and tables on this page were published on 1 May 2025.
  • Previous versions included student data. We will update these charts when the 2024 student data becomes available.

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