Boardroom diversity remains a priority for overwhelming majority

Boardroom diversity remains a priority for an overwhelming majority of boards, new data from the Corporate Governance Institute has shown. 

This is despite the more chaotic nature of business in the past few years, defined by shifting risk profiles, geopolitical crises, and the very concept of diversity being caught in polarised politics worldwide. 

The data is part of a new white paper from the Corporate Governance Institute, titled Boardroom Resilience in 2026: Independent research into board readiness, risk and strategy. 

Based on a survey of 500 corporate leaders across the UK and Ireland, the research came to the following key conclusions:

37.4% of respondents saw improving boardroom diversity as a priority within the next six months. A further 45.4% saw it as a priority within the next 12 months, meaning a total of 82.8% saw it as a priority within the space of a year. 

The figure stands in stark contrast to the general mood around diversity in the second half of the 2020s, particularly since the second Trump administration took office in the US, and began a very public campaign against any diversity, equity and inclusion measures in business. Due to the internationalisation of US-based funding programmes that now operate under these principles, major entities worldwide have become silent on DEI, dismantled their goals and promotion around it and axed DEI roles. It has rapidly created a culture where the movement is somewhat forgotten in business, if not actively discouraged. 

These white paper results, however, suggest an underlying commitment to DEI remains at the boardroom level.

Just under 90% of boards reported that their boards were diverse in their current form, with a subset of just under 26% reporting that their boards were “very diverse”. 

The most common areas of diversity reported by respondents were:

• Gender diversity (47%)
• Age diversity (46.2%)
• Ethnic diversity (40.2%)

While “diversity” has an incredibly broad meaning, the three above areas are routinely cited as key indicators in research published over the last fifteen years. This research has firmly trended towards the conclusion that higher levels of diversity in boardrooms are a positive asset for boards overall. At its core, they ensure governance is representative of stakeholders, particularly consumers and investors, and gives critical insights to boards and C-suite leaders as they formulate and sign off on strategy. 

Ultimately, this paints businesses as more sustainable in the long-term, with less risk of becoming irrelevant in marketplaces or losing public favour. 

At the other end of the scale, the least reported areas of diversity were:

• Disability representation (26.8%)
• Neurodiversity (23.6%)
• LGBTQ+ representation (16%)

The report also gathered information on what directors viewed as the main barriers to achieving boardroom diversity goals. Worryingly, directors reported a broad mix of challenges, many of them roughly equal in terms of the number of respondents who identified with them. 

The top barrier was the complex and evolving regulatory environment around DEI policies (36%) – extremely understandable given the chaotic and polarised debate that’s developing. It was followed closely by the lack of high-quality governance data and insights. However, a further six barriers all came in close behind, and within the 28-36% bracket. 

They included the lack of sufficient training or upskilling, poor ESG integration, and cultural resistance to change. 

Interestingly, 29.4% identified with the barrier of current diversity levels limiting perspectives and appetite for further diversity, indicating a cyclical nature that might be extremely hard for some boards to break free from.