Women in consulting, the role we play in being ourselves
International Women’s Day is a moment to celebrate progress and recognise the challenges that persist in consulting. Claire Cakebread and Grace Strong, Principal Consultants at AtkinsRéalis, explore how women are more present than ever in the consulting sector, yet presence alone isn’t power. Visibility doesn’t automatically translate into influence: the ability to shape strategy, steer decisions, and hold real authority.
We’ve both experienced the subtle forces that shape “what women do” at work, from casual comments to the way roles are allocated. Early in our careers, remarks about what was considered “women’s work” or being told not to speak in meetings unless it was “important” stayed with us. These messages don’t just sting, they steer career choices, nudging women away from leadership pathways that transform visibility into influence.
The Power Gap Remains
Across UK workplaces, women hold 38% of senior leadership positions, yet only one in five managers say senior leaders proactively advocate for women’s progression[i][ii]. This isn’t about women’s competence or ambition, it’s about the lack of advocacy and opportunity.
The consulting industry reflects this pattern. The 2025 MCA Annual Report[iii] notes that women now make up 44% of the profession, yet representation declines sharply at senior strategic levels[iv]. Gender balance at entry and mid-career stages doesn’t translate into influence at the top.
This mirrors trends seen across other expertise-led, project based professions: previous AtkinsRéalis research found that over a ten year period, career deflections such as stereotyping, isolation and bias led women to leave engineering roles at twice the rate of men (70% compared to 35%), constraining progression and long-term earning potential.
When organisations fail to utilise their full talent pool, they undermine fairness and dilute the diversity of thought, challenge, and creativity essential to adding value.
The Visibility Influence Gap
The gap between being visible and being influential tends to show up in three ways:
- Access to high-value work: Women are often visible in delivery roles but peripheral to strategy.
- Promotion vs progression: Women’s responsibilities grow without equivalent authority or reward.
- Sponsorship: Mentors advise, but sponsors advocate and tailored sponsorship remains uneven.
Closing these gaps isn’t just morally right, it improves performance through improved motivation, loyalty, culture, and innovation[v]. Visibility is progress, but influence is power.
The Double Bind
Consulting often rewards assertiveness, but women displaying it can face negative judgement, while men are praised. This “double bind” traps women in a contradiction: be decisive and risk being labelled aggressive; lead collaboratively and risk being seen as less authoritative[vi].
Women spend energy calibrating tone and presence – effort that could otherwise fuel innovation, leadership, and problem solving. For women of colour, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women, and neurodivergent women, these pressures are compounded by additional layers of bias[vii]. Organisational efforts to challenge bias matter.
So, should we pursue career progression and face the social penalties or should we maintain workplace harmony and risk being overlooked?
Authenticity in Modern Leadership
A lingering myth suggests success requires adopting traditionally masculine leadership styles[viii]. Yet consulting sits apart from traditional professional services, instead demanding empathy, collaboration, and adaptability; the very skills once dismissed as “soft” [ix] [x], are capabilities now essential to leading complex transformation.
The question is no longer how women adapt to outdated stereotypes but rather why these stereotypes persist.
What do we lose when innovation, ambition, and leadership are quietly boxed in, and what does our industry gain if authenticity was truly embraced at every level of leadership?
Building Equity
Flexible working, enhanced parental leave, coaching, and inclusivity networks are positive steps, but support alone isn’t equity. Equity requires deliberate, sustained action that addresses how opportunity, influence and progression are distributed.
Across the industry, organisations should focus on three measurable areas:
- Fair access to influential opportunities
- Fair evaluation of impact
- Active sponsorship and advocacy
These principles underpin the growth of structured development programmes across consulting. AtkinsRéalis has a UK&I Women’s Development Programme which supports women to reflect on strengths, clarify ambition and develop targeted career plans, illustrate what purposeful investment can look like when it is designed to change outcomes, not just offer support.
The consulting industry has made progress through leadership programmes and forums such as the APM’s Women in Project Management. However, progress must translate into outcomes, not simply optics. McKinsey’s 2024 data show women now hold 29% of C-suite roles, up from 17% in 2015[xi] yet progress has slowed and barriers at junior and mid-levels remain. Progress does not sustain itself without deliberate mechanisms.
Equity is not achieved through goodwill alone. It requires conscious leadership, structural change, and accountability. When women are supported to lead authentically and equitably, the benefits extend beyond individuals – the entire consulting industry benefits.
What are we asking?
If you’re a senior leader – sponsor, share power, and measure it.
1) Make sponsorship a requirement, not optional
- Assign sponsors to high-performing women in key accounts, stretch roles, and visible leadership platforms.
2) Audit “influence roles,” not just headcount
- Ensure women aren’t confined to low-reward coordination work.
If you’re a people manager – interrupt bias where it shows.
1) Allocate work meaningfully
- Track who gets stretch assignments, who gets “office housework,” and who gets client airtime, and rebalance deliberately.
2) Advocate with intention
- Credit ideas visibly; champion your team; and sanity check your language – would you say it about a man?
If you’re an individual consultant – build influence deliberately.
- Seek strategic roles with senior stakeholder engagement.
- Ask directly, and purposefully, for sponsorship.
Influence over visibility
Consulting has made progress in increasing women’s visibility, and that matters, but visibility alone is not influence. Influence in strategic decision making remains restricted by systemic barriers, subtle biases, and the double bind of leadership expectations.
If we want a profession performing at its best, we must create environments where women are not just present, but powerful, with equitable access to high value work, active sponsorship, fair evaluation, and leadership models that embrace authenticity.
The goal isn’t simply more women in consulting. It’s making consulting work better for the women who are already here.
Claire Cakebread and Grace Strong, Principal Consultants at AtkinsRéalis
[i] Women remain underrepresented in senior and strategic management positions, research shows – CMI
[ii] https://www.managers.org.uk/about-cmi/media-centre/press-releases/women-remain-underrepresented-in-senior-and-strategic-management-positions-research-shows/
[iii] Management Consultancies Association (2025). MCA Annual Industry Report 2025: Executive Summary https://www.mca.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/MCA-Annual-Industry-Report-2025-Executive-Summary.pdf
[iv] GIR 2025 – Gender equality in Consulting
[v] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace
[vi] Zheng, W., Kark, R. & Meister, A. (2018) How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 28 November. Available at: https://hbr.org/2018/11/how-women-manage-the-gendered-norms-of-leadership (Accessed: 9 February 2026).
[vii] Richardson, A. & Loubier, C., (2020). Intersectionality and Leadership: Emerging Identities and the New Woman Leader. Regent University. Available at: https://www.regent.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IJLS_V3Is2_Richardson_Loubier.pdf [Accessed 10 February 2026].
[viii] Brekhus, W. (2019). Intentional Invisibility: Professional Women and the Navigation of Workplace Constraints. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26618393
[ix] Ni, Y. (2024). Research on the Dynamic Changes of Leadership under Empathetic Female Leaders. Journal of Human Resource Development, 6(3). https://www.clausiuspress.com/assets/default/article/2024/11/01/article_1730451459.pdf
[x] Muss, C., Tüxen, D., & Fürstenau, B. (2025). Empathy in leadership: a systematic literature review on the effects of empathetic leaders in organizations. Management Review Quarterly, 76, 333–369. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11301-024-00472-7
[xi] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace