Some of the UK’s largest and most prestigious universities have wide gaps between the proportion of their academics overall who are female and their share of the professoriate.
Across the country, the proportion of professors who are women increased to 31 per cent in 2022, compared with 30 per cent the year before, but a Times Higher Education analysis of data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveals significant differences in rates of promotion.
The findings might indicate universities that are failing to promote women – or institutions that have significantly increased female representation among their lower academic ranks, with potential to diversify the professoriate in coming years.
For the analysis, THE calculated the percentage of female academics below professorial rank and compared this with the percentage of female professors or other senior academics, such as heads of department.
