Where the Gender Gap Actually Sits: A Sector-by-Sector Analysis

Published August 2026. Statistical and legal references current as of the date of publication. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Ask which industries have a problem with women in leadership and the answer comes back predictably: technology bad, consumer goods better, telecoms somewhere in between. The numbers broadly support that ranking. But the ranking explains almost nothing, because the sector figure is a function figure in disguise.

Women are not distributed randomly across corporate leadership. They are concentrated in specific roles, and the sectors that look best are simply the sectors built around those roles. Once you see that, the sector question changes: not “does this industry have enough women in leadership,” but “does this industry give women the roles that lead anywhere.”

This analysis compares five sectors on that basis, using the most recent verifiable data for each, and is explicit about where good data does not exist.

The functional map underneath every sector number

The clearest picture of where women in senior leadership actually sit comes from the World Economic Forum’s June 2026 analysis, built on LinkedIn Economic Graph data. Globally, women hold around a quarter of all C-suite roles. The distribution within that quarter is the finding:

• Roughly two-thirds of chief human resources officer roles
• Just under half of chief marketing officer roles
• About a quarter of chief financial officer and chief operating officer roles
• Fewer than one in five chief information officer roles
• 8.6% of chief technology officer roles
• 19.1% of chief executive roles

Two things follow. First, any sector weighted toward marketing, brand, communications and human resources will report comparatively strong female senior representation, and any sector weighted toward engineering will report weak representation, before either sector has done anything differently. Second, the functions where women are best represented are the functions least likely to produce a chief executive, because boards recruit chief executives from general management and profit and loss ownership.

The European picture is consistent. The European Institute for Gender Equality found women held 18.5% of executive director positions across the largest listed companies in the EU as of October 2025, up from 16.2% three years earlier, while women remain just over 10% of board chairs and just under 10% of chief executives.

Sector comparison

What each sector’s number actually means

Consumer goods and retail post the strongest figure of the five, and the reason is instructive. The LEAD Network Gender Diversity Scorecard, produced with EY, found women in roughly 38% of senior executive roles across 25 European companies covering 6,886 executives, up from 37% in 2023. That is well ahead of technology or industry. But it reflects a sector organised around brand, marketing and consumer insight, which are precisely the functions where women are best represented. The consumer goods analysis sets out the consequence: Unilever, one of the sector’s stronger performers, reported 36% women in the senior management tier reporting into its Leadership Executive against 15% on the Leadership Executive itself. The pipeline is full one level below the top and thin at the top, which is a selection problem rather than a supply problem.

Technology and IT produce the opposite pattern for the mirror-image reason. Compensation benchmarking firm Ravio reports women at around 40% of the European tech workforce but only 21% of executive roles, and the WEF figure of 8.6% for chief technology officers is the lowest of any C-suite seat. Underneath that sits a genuinely narrow talent pool: Eurostat data for 2025 shows women make up 16.6% of employed people in the EU with an ICT education, with men outnumbering women in every single Member State. The technology analysis explains why this makes quota compliance harder for tech boards specifically: a board overseeing a technology business needs directors who can interrogate architecture and security posture, and that credential is held by the smallest population of women in corporate life.

Software companies backed by venture or private equity have no meaningful sector representation figure, and the reason is itself the finding. Their boards are not designed but accumulated, seat by seat, as funding rounds close. The study commissioned by the European Commission and the European Innovation Council, published in October 2025, found women make up 16% of general partners in European venture and growth equity funds, managing around 9% of assets under management. When most board seats are filled by investor appointment from a base that is roughly 84% male at senior level, board composition is largely settled before anyone treats it as a question. The software analysis makes the practical point: the independent non-executive seats are the only ones the company genuinely chooses, and they carry disproportionate weight at exit.

Telecommunications is the sector where the regulation is clearest and the data is weakest. The most widely quoted figure for female senior leadership in European telecoms comes from a 2015 report and is now eleven years old; it should not be used, and no current equivalent exists. What is verifiable is the ownership structure and the law attached to it. Europe’s incumbent operators were state monopolies and remain partly state-owned: the Belgian State holds 53.51% of Proximus, the Swedish state around 38% of Telia, the German federal government and KfW around 27.8% of Deutsche Telekom. That pulls them into public enterprise rules on top of ordinary listed company quotas, and in December 2025 the Belgian federal government approved draft legislation requiring at least 33% women on the executive committees of autonomous public enterprises, naming Proximus explicitly; adoption is pending and no deadline has been set. The telecommunications analysis sets out both layers.

Ecommerce also lacks sector-specific representation data, but has the most unusual regulatory position of the five. Article 41 of the Digital Services Act requires every designated very large online platform to establish an independent compliance function headed by an independent senior manager who reports directly to the management body and cannot be removed without its approval. Twenty-five platforms are designated, including Amazon Store, AliExpress, Zalando, Shein and Temu. This is one of the few instances in European law of a regulation effectively creating a senior executive role and defining its independence. The ecommerce analysis argues that the sector’s real advantage is timing: these companies are building governance for the first time rather than unwinding decades of composition.

Three patterns across the five

1. The sector ranking is mostly a functional ranking. Consumer goods leads because it is built on marketing and brand. Technology trails because it is built on engineering. Neither result tells you much about how seriously the sector takes the question. What distinguishes companies within a sector is whether women hold profit and loss and line roles, and that is not captured in any headline sector statistic.

2. Three of the five sectors have no reliable representation data at all. Telecommunications, software and ecommerce cannot be measured against a current, credible European benchmark. That is not a minor gap. Sectors that are not measured do not get compared, do not get league tables, and do not get the reputational pressure that moved boards in the markets where measurement exists. The absence of data is itself a structural advantage for the status quo.

3. Regulation is arriving at the executive layer, and it is arriving unevenly by sector. France’s Rixain law reaches executive committees in every sector. Belgium’s December 2025 draft would reach them only in public enterprises, which happens to capture telecoms. Spain’s parity law reaches senior management of listed companies. The Digital Services Act creates a specific senior role for large platforms. A company’s exposure now depends on the intersection of where it is incorporated, whether it is listed, whether the state holds shares, and what it does. That intersection is exactly what a generic diversity policy fails to address.

The common thread

Across all five sectors, one obligation applies regardless of industry, listing status or ownership. The EU Pay Transparency Directive is being introduced across Member States, unevenly: only four met the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline, and several including Germany, Spain and the Netherlands are still legislating. But the substance is fixed. Salary ranges must be given to candidates before interview, pay secrecy clauses are banned, the first gender pay gap reports fall due in June 2027, and any unjustified gap above 5% triggers a mandatory joint pay assessment with worker representatives.

That last provision is where the functional map becomes a financial exposure. A company can pay men and women identically for the same role at the same level and still report a wide unadjusted gap, because its highest-paid roles are held overwhelmingly by men. In technology those roles are engineering leadership. In consumer goods they are general management. The reporting deadline arrives before any realistic pipeline change can, which means the first report will describe the organisation as it is, not as it intends to be.

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Frequently asked questions

Which industry has the most women in senior leadership? Of the sectors compared here, consumer goods and retail: women hold roughly 38% of senior executive roles across the 25 European companies surveyed by the LEAD Network in 2025. However, that reflects a sector built around marketing, brand and consumer functions, where women are best represented generally. It does not mean women in consumer goods are closer to becoming chief executives.

Why do women hold so few technology leadership roles? Two reasons compound. The talent pool is narrow at source: women make up 16.6% of employed people in the EU with an ICT education, with men outnumbering women in every Member State (Eurostat, 2025). And within technology companies, women hold around 40% of the workforce but only 21% of executive roles, indicating they are being recruited into the sector but not promoted through it. Globally, women hold 8.6% of chief technology officer positions.

Does the gender gap differ by function or by industry? Primarily by function. World Economic Forum analysis published in June 2026 found women hold roughly two-thirds of chief human resources officer roles, just under half of chief marketing officer roles, about a quarter of chief financial and chief operating officer roles, fewer than one in five chief information officer roles and 8.6% of chief technology officer roles. Sector figures largely reflect which of those functions each industry is built around.

Which sectors face executive-level gender requirements rather than just board quotas? Requirements at executive level are still rare but expanding. France’s Rixain law applies 30% of each sex to senior executives and executive committee members of companies with 1,000 or more employees, rising to 40% in 2029, across all sectors. Spain applies a 40% principle to senior management of listed companies. Belgium has approved draft legislation introducing a 33% executive committee requirement for public enterprises, which would capture state-owned telecoms operators. Separately, the Digital Services Act requires designated online platforms to appoint an independent senior compliance manager.

Why is there no reliable gender data for some sectors? Because no organisation currently produces a credible, current European benchmark for telecommunications, software or ecommerce leadership specifically. Frequently quoted telecoms figures date from 2015 and should not be treated as current. Consumer goods and retail are measured by the LEAD Network scorecard, and technology by several compensation and workforce datasets, but coverage is patchy. Sectors that are not measured avoid comparison, which removes a source of pressure that has demonstrably moved representation elsewhere.

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Sources: World Economic Forum, Closing the Gender Gap in Senior Leadership, June 2026, using LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute data; European Institute for Gender Equality, October 2025; LEAD Network Gender Diversity Scorecard 2025, produced with EY; Eurostat, ICT education and ICT specialists, 2025 reference year, published June 2026; Ravio 2026 Compensation Trends report; European Commission and European Innovation Council study on the gender investment gap, October 2025; Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act); Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency; loi n° 2021-1774 (Rixain); Ley Orgánica 2/2024; Belgian draft legislation approved by the federal government, December 2025, adoption pending; company shareholder disclosures.