Number of women moving into management roles increases by a third

The number of women moving into managerial and professional roles has increased significantly over the last decade, according to research.

The amount of women in managerial jobs has grown by almost one-third (30%) in the past 10 years, compared to 15% in professional roles, the report by The Work Foundation think-tank showed.

There was also a significant increase in 'associate professional' roles (such as nurses and computer technicians) for both men and women. The number of women in associate professional jobs has more than doubled, growing by 57%, in the last decade, compared with 17% for men.

Managerial roles for men were found to have grown by 13% and the number of professional jobs increased by 8%, the report showed.

Ian Brinkley, director of the knowledge economy programme at The Work Foundation and co-author of the report, said the report challenged a number of popular theories.

"In the 1990s, it was widely claimed that work and society were becoming more divided, while breaking into the elite would be nigh on impossible. That story no longer looks right," he said.

"Instead, what seems to be happening is that, if anything, the world of work is upwardly mobile. Among women in particular, there seems to have been a fairly smooth transition into higher skilled, higher paying work."

Top five high-paying jobs for women:

• Marketing and sales managers
• Hospital and health service managers
• Personnel managers
• Primary and nursery teachers
• Management consultants, actuaries, economists and statisticians

Top five high-paying jobs for men:

• Marketing and sales managers
• IT managers
• Construction managers
• Medical practitioners
• Software professionals

Top five low-paying occupations for women:

• Sales assistants
• Care assistants
• Educational assistants
• Kitchen and catering assistants
• General office assistants

Top five low-paying jobs for men:

• Sales and retail assistants
• Goods handling and storage occupations
• Kitchen and catering assistants
• Cleaners and domestics
• Labourers, builders and woodworking trades

First published in Personnel Today