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The moment Sophie Spells returned from maternity leave with her third child, she stepped into one of the most senior roles in the business when, shortly afterwards, she was promoted to group chief executive of RCK Partners. For Spells, that experience captures both the progress being made across the profession and the conditions still required to sustain it.
“As group CEO and a mum to three young kids, enhanced maternity leave and flexible working have been instrumental to my personal progression,” she says. “The biggest thing is not the importance of return-to-work schemes, but that the opportunities are still there when you return.”
Her experience is not universal. While pathways to leadership are opening, they remain uneven and often contingent on the support of senior leadership teams and firm culture. Without that, she suggests, progression can stall at precisely the point where careers should accelerate.
This tension is reflected in the latest data. Half of UK accountancy firms now have at least one woman at board or partnership level, according to Lubbock Fine. Yet the profession still trails behind the legal sector, where 71% of firms have achieved that benchmark. The gap points to a slower pace of change and raises questions about whether accountancy firms are investing sufficiently in the structures that support female leadership.
Regulators including the Financial Reporting Council and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales have consistently linked diverse leadership teams with stronger workplace cultures and improved financial performance. While the business case remains clearcut, professionals say the challenge lies in translating that into consistent outcomes across the profession.
Progress made, but a persistent gap remains
Much of the issue stems from what many describe as a “leaky pipeline”, where women enter the profession in strong numbers but drop out before reaching senior leadership.
Syed Hussain Murtaza, managing director of Naail and Co Chartered Certified Accountants, identifies a critical pressure point. “A common pinch point in accountancy is the manager to senior manager stage, where the workload spikes are least compatible with predictable hours,” he explains. “Busy season intensity, travel and late-stage professional exams can coincide with the life stage when many people are also making decisions about parenting or other caring responsibilities.”
That timing is echoed by Eva Maria Stegemann, partner and head of human resources at RCK Partners, who points to a broader structural pattern. “Evidence shows that progression plateaus for women in their late 20s–30s, as that is typically the time when women decide to start families,” she says. “This creates a pipeline issue, meaning fewer women are in roles that typically lead to board positions.”
Habiba Khatoon, director at recruitment agency Robert Walters Midlands, adds that the structure of the profession itself can compound the problem. “Partnership and board opportunities often coincide with peak childbearing years,” she notes. “Career breaks or reduced hours can undermine this progression and often lead to many mid-to-senior women leaving firms for in-house roles or to change careers.”
Even when women do return, the conditions they encounter can determine whether they remain on a leadership track. Laura Leslie, partner at DSG Chartered Accountants, highlights the importance of continuity. “When women return, it’s crucial they are given the right level of support, access to training and mentoring, and genuine flexibility,” she says. “Progression should not be determined by time served alone, but by skills, experience and readiness.”
While these challenges are well documented, the question remains: why does accountancy continue to lag behind comparable professions such as law?
Why the pipeline breaks before partnership
Murtaza believes that part of the answer lies in structural differences between the two industries. “Many legal firms have a clearer, more linear career architecture with defined practice areas and more standardised progression expectations,” he explains. “That supports earlier visibility of gaps and targeted fixes.”
Khatoon agrees, pointing to the flexibility embedded within legal career paths. “Legal firms tend to offer multiple career tracks,” she says. “Roles from associate and counsel to salaried or equity partner come with different expectations and routes to progression.”
By contrast, accountancy firms often operate within narrower definitions of progression and partner readiness. “In accountancy, progression can be tightly tied to managing a portfolio through cyclical delivery peaks,” Murtaza adds. “If the roles that carry the strongest commercial signals are the least flexible, fewer people can stay in that lane long enough to be considered.”
“One considerate act of allyship can influence the direction of a career.” – Natasha Frangos, managing partner of HaysMac
Cultural expectations also play a significant role. Emma Birchall, partner at JS, believes the profession has been slower to evolve its image. “Accountancy has probably held onto a more traditional image and structure for longer than some other professions,” she says. “It has taken time for the sector to really challenge some of the old assumptions about what leadership looks like.”
At the heart of this is partnership culture itself. While not inherently exclusionary, many argue that the way it operates in practice can create barriers.
“When it rewards visibility and availability more than outcomes,” Murtaza says, “it will systematically filter out talented people who need flexibility.”
However, HaysMac managing partner Natasha Frangos doesn’t think that the partnership model itself is the issue. From her perspective, it comes down to “implementing the policies and nurturing the right culture”. With that said, progression within that model often depends on less visible factors such as: access to high-profile work, client relationships and internal advocacy, which can all shape career trajectories.
“Sponsorship from incumbent senior leaders is key to career acceleration,” Khatoon points out. “Women typically receive less of this support than their male peers.”
In this context, Frangos underscores the impact of allyship, saying, “When I became a partner, two male colleagues played an important role by speaking up for me at a point when I might otherwise have been overlooked. One considerate act of allyship can influence the direction of a career.”
Having benefited from a similar experience, Spells likewise echoes this need for representation in decision-making spaces. “It’s essential to have someone in the room as a decision maker who can ensure that you are represented and advocated for,” she says.
From policy to practice: what actually drives change
If the barriers are clear, so too are many of the solutions. Across the board, leaders point to the importance of policies that support real working lives.
“These policies are incredibly important,” says Leslie. “At DSG, we revised our maternity policy just over three years ago, and this has had a clear impact on improving retention.”
Spells emphasises that flexibility must be meaningful. “There’s an understanding there of the day-to-day requirements for me as a working parent,” she shares. “For example, I won’t be available during my children’s bedtime, but I will be back online later in the evening.”
Frangos takes a broader view, linking policy to long-term performance. “Work policies must be designed to support women in their lived, authentic experiences,” she says, agreeing with Spells’ work boundaries.
While policies help set a baseline standard for conduct, Birchall cautions they’re not enough to bridge the gender gap. “Company culture also has to support those policies,” she points out. “Otherwise people can still feel that using them might affect how they are seen or whether they progress.”
Stegemann agrees, noting that uptake is often the real test. She says, “the differentiator is how confidently people can use their entitled leave without fear of repercussions.”
Alongside policy, mentorship and sponsorship are widely seen as critical levers for change. But as several leaders point out, they serve different purposes.
“Mentorship builds skills and confidence, but sponsorship changes outcomes by allocating opportunity,” Murtaza explains in short.
Spells uses RCK Partners’ Future Leaders programme as an example of how opportunities can be formalised. This scheme pairs individuals with a member of the C-suite for formal leader mentorship. Meanwhile, Frangos points to HaysMac’s internal networks to increase employees’ chances of progression. She says, “We’ve created FemNet and ConnectHer, alongside a structured mentoring programme, to ensure women feel empowered, connected and supported.”
“The biggest thing is not the importance of return-to-work schemes, but that the opportunities are still there when you return.” – Sophie Spells, group CEO of RCK Partners
Khatoon stresses the need to move beyond informal systems and agrees with such programmes set up by firms like RCK and HaysMac, saying, “High-potential women should be paired with senior figures who can advocate for them, rather than relying on informal networks.”
It should also go without saying that visibility also plays a crucial role in sustaining progress. As Leslie points out, “It brings different perspectives to the boardroom and helps ensure that firm-wide policies are shaped through multiple lenses.” Birchall likewise agrees, saying that visibility has a tangible impact on future generations by showing them “these roles are achievable and that there is more than one way to succeed.”
Beyond individual firms’ noble efforts to narrow the gender gap, external pressures are increasingly shaping the pace of change. In financial services partnerships, women account for just 15.3% of partners, a figure that has remained largely unchanged year-on-year. This stagnation stands in contrast to the wider financial services sector, where women hold 18.6% of senior leadership roles.
Stegemann points to the growing role of accountability. “Requiring diversity disclosure and compliance have allowed for uniform reporting and highlighted any gaps,” she says. “In professional services it has become a client proposition to see diverse project teams.”
Murtaza adds that firms risk falling behind commercially if they fail to respond, and warns “firms that stall are likely to lose tenders where diversity evidence is part of supplier assessment.”
Frangos reinforces the business case with performance data. “Top-quartile gender-diverse firms see 27% higher profitability and 47% higher returns on equity,” she notes. “Investing in women is the right thing to do, but it is also good business sense.”
Yet despite these drivers, there are signs that progress may be slowing. Economic pressures and shifting global attitudes towards diversity initiatives are getting in the way of what should be a no-brainer. “Economic pressure is forcing firms to justify initiatives,” Stegemann says. “The political landscape for multinationals has changed too.”
The high cost of replacing senior talent, especially the need to reestablish client trust and continuity, could have significant consequences, Murtaza cautions. This reality positions the current moment as a critical inflection point for the finance profession. While the challenges and their solutions have been identified, their consistent implementation has yet to be achieved.
“Mentorship builds skills and confidence, but sponsorship changes outcomes.” – Syed Hussain Murtaza, managing director of Naail and Co Chartered Certified Accountants
Looking ahead, leaders are clear on what needs to change. For Spells, it begins with rethinking progression itself. “Carefully consider promotion criteria, formalise sponsorship, and ensure women have equal access to roles that lead to senior leadership.”
Khatoon advocates for broader structural reform. Leslie and Birchall both return to the importance of culture and visibility, while Frangos emphasises the need for sustained investment rather than symbolic action.
On a hopeful note, Stegemann offers a perspective on how far the profession has already come “The shift over the last 20 years is from only exceptional women succeeding despite the system to seeing visible female leaders succeeding within evolving systems,” she reminds us.
That evolution is visible in leaders like Spells, whose career reflects both the challenges and the possibilities within the profession. But as the data shows, her experience is still not the norm.
The next phase for accountancy will depend on whether firms can move from isolated examples of progress to systemic change. The tools are available. The question is whether the profession is prepared to use them at scale.
