1 Million-Plus Women Members of Boards in UK - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Just over a million of the 2.83 million directors in the UK are women, and the rate of growth for female board members is 10.5%, a percentage point and a half higher than that for men.

• According to an analysis of the global information services company Experian’s National Business Database for the Female Directors Report 2007, there were 1,008,343 female directors, or more than 28% of the total number of board members.

• Women hold more board seats in property management (40%), education, health and social work sectors and the fewest in utilities (11%).

• Women still hold relatively few board seats at larger companies — 11% of directorships at firms with sales of at least £22.8 million and 12% of those with more than 250 employees. But the growth rate at the more populous companies was 25% since 2005.

• The younger the director, the more likely she is to be female, with 5.6% of women directors under the age of 30, vs 4.5% of male board members.

• The older the company, paradoxically, the more likely a new director will be a woman, with companies more than 14 years old being twice as likely to add a woman as director than a newer company.

A summary of the findings and a link to the Experian Female Director Report 2007