The consulting industry has a high share of women in non-management functions. There are more women than men in non-management positions. However, the proportion of women continuously declines with each higher hierarchical level. In top management, the share of women is only 23%, which is 31 percentage points lower than in non-management positions. The largest drop occurs between lowest and lower management, where the proportion of women decreases by 10 percentage points.
In lowest/lower management, promotions in the consulting industry fall below the share of women in the pipeline (54% in non-management) and below the existing share of women in these management levels (43%). The picture is different for external hires in these positions: 56% of those recruited into lowest/lower management are women, which exceeds the current proportion of women in these roles.
A similar pattern can be observed in middle/top management. Here too, the share of women among hires is higher than among promotions. However, the 30% share of women promoted into these levels roughly reflects the current representation of women in these positions.
Unlike last year, women were supported more through external hires than through promotions.
The Glass Ceiling Index of 2.0 means that women are disadvantaged in reaching the upper management positions. Women face relatively moderate barriers to reach middle and top management positions compared to other industries.
At all management levels, women work at employment rates that are 5 to 8 percentage points lower than those of men. Only in non-management positions is the gender gap as small as one percentage point. In consulting, there are considerably fewer differences in the average employment percentages across different management levels. Women have slightly lower average employment rates than men, showing that even in an industry where part-time work is not the norm, women consistently work at slightly lower rates than men. The consulting industry generally has high average employment rates for both genders compared to other industries.