McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2025 Report

A Summary of the Risks to Women’s Career Progression at Work

LeanIn and McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report highlights a growing concern for organisations: progress on women’s advancement is slowing, and in some area’s risks reversing altogether. While the business case for gender equity remains strong, the report suggests that organisational focus is beginning to waver.

The 2026 findings show that fewer companies now view women’s advancement as a high priority than in previous years. This matters because the report is clear: where organisations sustain commitment, women’s representation improves more quickly. Where focus weakens, barriers such as limited sponsorship, unequal access to opportunity, and reduced support structures continue to shape women’s career outcomes.

Organisational Priority Is Declining

2025’s report indicates a sharp drop in the number of companies prioritising women’s career advancement. With only 54% of organisations say advancing women is a high priority, down from nearly 70% in 2021. The figure is lower still for women of colour, with only 46% of companies identifying their advancement as a high priority.

The report also shows that:

• 2 in 10 organisations place little or no priority on advancing women
• 3 in 10 organisations place little or no priority on advancing women of colour
  
  

Sponsorship Remains a Critical Barrier

The Women in Work 2025 report reinforces the importance of sponsorship as a key driver of career progression.

Women remain less likely than men to have sponsors, particularly senior sponsors who can advocate for stretch roles, visibility, and promotion opportunities.

According to the report:

• 65% of employees with a sponsor received a promotion in the last two years
• Compared with 35% of employees without one

This suggests that sponsorship is not simply a developmental benefit. It is a critical part of career progression infrastructure, particularly in environments where advancement still depends heavily on visibility and advocacy.

Flexible Working Continues to Have Uneven Effects

The findings also identify a clear gap in how flexible and remote working affects career progression. Women working mostly remotely are less likely to have sponsors and are less likely to be promoted than women working primarily in person. This pattern is especially pronounced at entry level.

The report finds that:

• Entry-level women working remotely are 1.5 times less likely to be promoted than office-based women
• Men’s promotion rates are far less affected by work location

This points to an important organisational challenge: when career progression relies on informal visibility, remote and flexible working can unintentionally disadvantage women more than men.

AI May Be Creating a New Early-Career Divide

A newer theme in 2025’s report is the relationship between AI adoption and early-career development.

The data suggests that entry-level women are receiving less encouragement than men to use AI tools at work. As AI becomes more embedded in everyday work and increasingly associated with productivity, confidence, and future-readiness, unequal exposure may create a new career-development gap.

The report highlights that:

• Only 21% of entry-level women say their manager encourages them to use AI tools
• Compared with around one-third of entry-level men
• Only 37% of women believe AI will improve their career prospects
• Compared with 60% of employees overall

For organisations, this raises an important question: how can access to AI learning and experimentation be distributed equitably, rather than reinforcing existing gaps in confidence, visibility, and opportunity?

Intersectional Gaps Persist

The report also shows that women’s experiences are not uniform, and that some groups continue to face more limited access to career-building support.

One notable finding is that mid-level Asian women report lower levels of advocacy, feedback, and connection to senior leaders than other groups. The report identifies this as a meaningful barrier to progression, with long-term implications for representation at senior levels.

• • • Promotion advocacy
    • Stretch assignments
    • Career-building connections

High-Performing Companies Continue to Make Faster Progress

Despite the overall slowdown, the report also provides a clear indication of what works.

Since 2021, companies that are performing well on women’s representation have increased women’s representation at every level more quickly than lower-performing organisations, particularly in senior leadership.

The report suggests that these organisations are more likely to:

• Treat gender diversity as a strategic priority
• Hold senior leaders accountable for progress
• Use clear and consistent hiring and promotion criteria
• Track outcomes over time
• Maintain structured support for women’s advancement

Therefore, progress appears to be linked less to intention alone and more to sustained organisational discipline.

Structured Support Is Being Reduced in Some Organisations

A further concern in the report is that some of the programmes most associated with women’s advancement are being scaled back.

• At least 1 in 6 organisations have reduced DEI staff or resources
• Formal sponsorship programmes, women-focused leadership initiatives, and flexible work options are among the supports being reduced in some organisations

Many of these interventions help address gaps in informal access to advocacy, visibility, and development. Where informal systems remain uneven, structured support can play an important role in creating more consistent pathways to progression.

What This Means for Organisations

The central takeaway from the 2025 Women in the Workplace report is that progress for women’s advancement remains possible, but it requires sustained commitment.

The report shows that:

• Companies with stronger focus on women’s progression continue to outperform others on representation
• Sponsorship remains one of the strongest predictors of advancement
• Flexible working can create uneven outcomes when progression depends on informal visibility
• New technologies such as AI may introduce new disparities if access is not actively managed
• Reducing structured support risks weakening the very mechanisms that help close opportunity gaps

For organisations, this is a reminder that gender equity is not maintained through intent alone. It depends on consistent systems, leadership accountability, and deliberate investment.

Key Takeaways for Employers

To support women’s progression more effectively, organisations should consider:

• Maintaining women’s advancement as a visible strategic priority, even when external focus shifts
• Strengthening sponsorship, particularly for early- and mid-career women
• Monitoring the impact of flexible and remote working on promotion, visibility, and access to senior leaders
• Ensuring equitable access to AI learning and experimentation, especially at entry level
• Taking an intersectional approach to development and progression
• Retaining structured development initiatives, including sponsorship, leadership development, and coaching
• Tracking outcomes rigorously to identify where progress is stalling