In its fifth annual analysis of UK retail funds – looking across IA sectors and including funds managed on a team rather than named manager basis – Tilney estimated the number of funds managed by female managers has risen to 9.2%, up from 8.5% last year.
Tilney said this represented notable progress since the publication of the Davies Report in 2011, which targets a third of all board seats at Britain’s biggest companies to be held by women by 2020.
Women currently account for 26% of board positions at FTSE 100 companies, up from 12.5% in 2010.
“The representation of women in front line fund management positions remains very low and lags the progress seen in many other professions, with one in five partners at law firms now women,” said Tilney Group managing director Jason Hollands.
“However, the representation of women in frontline fund management roles is clearly rising: when we commenced this analysis in 2013 our research estimated that just 5% of all funds were managed or co-managed by female fund managers, so the percentage of identifiable female fund managers has doubled over the last five years.”
