Level 20 conducts research to establish accurate and reliable data so that it can track progress towards its goals
These goals include analysis to track the number of women working in the industry as well as commissioned research into the issues that will drive greater gender diversity across the industry, moving forward.
Aims & objectives
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Workforce data
Provide reliable data tracking gender representation across European private equity
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Industry insight
Provide data driven insight on the potential barriers to the success of female professionals
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Benchmarking
Produce insights to enable firms to benchmark their journeys
A spotlight on some recent Spanish research
Marta Gaia Zanchi Explains the research methodology used to assess the true number of women working in private equity in Spain
Diversity and inclusion surveys
One of Level 20’s aims is to regularly produce data – broken down by country and global AUM – on gender representation in PE and VC firms in all our chapter countries, on a consistent, comparable basis. This way, progress can be tracked towards Level 20’s goals, and tools provided, for firms to use to benchmark themselves.
We have been tracking progress in the UK with the BVCA since 2018, and in Spain, Poland and the Netherlands since 2021. In 2022 and 2024, we published a European-wide report, covering 13 of our European chapter countries. Below are the reports published for each study.
- European analysis (2024) >
- European analysis (2022) >
- UK analysis (2023) >
- Netherlands analysis (2023) >
- Poland analysis (2021) >
- Spain analysis (2021) >
For our UK analysis and the 2024 European report, we also provide firms with a comparison tool to benchmark against AUM class peers in countries of operation.
The research found that the vast majority of senior investment roles continue to be held by men. While historically fewer women have joined the industry, increasing numbers of hires at junior levels present an opportunity to improve representation at the top.
We will continue to track and publish analyses of female representation, updating reports and benchmarking tools accordingly.
In collaboration with the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, as well as producing a number of reports on Women working in private equity (2018, 2019, 2021, 2023), Level 20 has also produced research on Women working in Limited Partners.
Insights and benchmarking
Level 20 aims to understand the causes and solutions for the current low representation of women at senior levels in investment teams. In partnership with YSC Consulting, we produced Reaping the Rewards of Retention, an in-depth qualitative study identifying the issues senior women faced in building careers in investment roles.
29 %
of the overall private equity workforce is represented by women
14 %
of participants believe there is the right gender balance in leadership
10 %
The average amount of women in leadership teams
We continue to explore how PE and VC firms can attract, retain and promote women in their organisations and investment teams, through our current research agenda, as well as conducting survey-based benchmarking to support our sponsor firms.
Other insights
As an organisation, we regularly contribute to research, articles and opinion pieces which address DE&I issues across the breadth of the private equity industry:
Going beyond diversity targets
Level 20 chair Cheryl Potter and EY‘s Liz de Freitas share why and how private equity firms must take a multifaceted approach to retain the best female talent.
There is now a large body of evidence to show that diverse teams make better quality decisions. In our industry that means delivering higher returns.
Cheryl Potter, Former Level 20 Chair (2021-2024)
Find out moreCareer paths and personality traits: gender similarities and differences
Launched in July 2018, this report was commissioned by Level 20 and created by University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
In the course of our extensive discussions as an organisation around why so few women participate in this industry, it became clear that little was known about the career paths of both the women and the men who work in this sector. We were all able to contribute anecdotes from our own experiences, but could not find a comprehensive, academic study on this topic, possibly because it is still a relatively young industry. We therefore decided that we needed to address this deficiency in order to have reliable data to support and guide Level 20’s work.
