Comment: Gender diversity in AIM boardrooms: another year of standing still

The latest Gender Diversity in AIM Company Boards report (an annual report that measures how many women sit on the boards of AIM‑listed companies and tracks year‑on‑year progress on gender representation) should spur action. At the current pace, most Alternative Investment Market (AIM) companies will not reach 40% female representation until 2049. This year’s findings show a market that remains stubbornly static, with no meaningful momentum toward improving board gender balance. AIM companies are now a full generation behind the standard expected of the FTSE 350. 

Despite years of debate, data and evidence, women still hold only 16.8% of AIM board seats, an increase of less than half a percentage point in a year. The report makes clear that just one in six board members are women.  

A decade behind, and drifting further back 

The report makes the disparity painfully clear. The FTSE 350, galvanised by formal targets and transparent reporting, has moved significantly in the last decade. AIM, governed by the more flexible QCA Code, has not. Flexibility was intended to foster innovation, not to enable inertia. Yet the evidence shows that most AIM companies are not using natural director turnover to diversify their boards. In fact, the pace of change has slowed since last year. 

More than 37.2% of AIM boards remain all male, a figure that has barely budged. Nearly threequarters have either no women at all or only one, leaving solo female directors isolated and unable to shift boardroom culture alone. The proportion of companies with two or more women directors has fallen from 29% to 27%. These are not the statistics of a market on the move. 

Leadership remains a closed shop 

It is not only board presence that is lacking, women remain  remain underrepresented from the most influential roles. 

Leadership shapes culture. The absence of women at the top sends a clear signal about whose voices carry weight, and whose do not. 

Sector and size disparities tell their own story 

The data shows vast inconsistencies across the market with female representation almost entirely absent in certain sectors: 

This unevenness highlights that progress is possible, but only where boards make it a priority. 

The myth of the “pipeline problem” 

One of the most striking findings is that 70 AIM companies (11.5% of the market) already meet the 40% benchmark. They have found talented, board ready women. The argument that smaller companies "cannot find suitable candidates" simply does not hold. The issue is not supply; it is selection. 

As Peter Swabey, Director of Policy at The Chartered Governance Institute, commented in the report: 

“If you insist on a new director having been an AIM board member, where we know diversity levels are low, you are exacerbating the problem.”