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To those unfamiliar with the terminology, the ‘glass ceiling’ is an ‘unofficial or unacknowledged barrier to personal advancement.’ (OED) It is often referred to as preventing women from advancing to senior positions in the workplace.
In a world dominated by men, the publishing industry has seemingly forged a matriarchy. In the 2024 UK Publishing Workforce Survey commissioned by the Publishers Association, 68% of respondents were women. Almost 10,000 employees responded from across 52 businesses, so while the survey does not encapsulate the entire industry, it is the most recent comprehensive review of publishing in the UK. Despite women’s well-established majority in the field, female representation at executive and board level has fluctuated.
The ‘Big Five’ in publishing (HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Pan Macmillan, Hachette UK, and Simon and Schuster) employ women in many executive positions. By January 2027, four of the ‘Big Five’ will have female CEO’s, as Katie Espiner succeeds David Shelley in Hachette UK. We can celebrate this fractured glass ceiling, interpreting this as evidence of progress across the industry. However, closer examination of the leadership teams in the ‘Big Five’ may undercut this show of female dominance at the top.
More traditionally female-led departments such as Human Resources and Communications are still overwhelmingly held by women. Every ‘Big Five’ company has a woman leading their HR and Communications department. Contrastingly, the ‘C-suite’ of a company where its highest-ranking senior executives belong (the Chief Executive Officer’s, Chief Financial Officer’s, Chief Operating Officer’s and so forth), are often harder for women to access. These roles hold significant financial and strategic decision-making power. Yet, all these companies, excluding Pan Macmillan, have male CFO’s. While we cannot simply attribute individual success to one’s gender, this pattern is worth investigating. If more than half (68%) of the workforce in publishing is female, then why do they not hold key financial positions? Evidently, the glass ceiling in the financial department is more robust than the glass ceiling in HR, which has been completely broken.
This progress has not been linear. A 2017 Guardian article notes how women publishers such as ‘Random House’s Gail Rebuck, Penguin’s Helen Fraser, Macmillan’s Annette Thomas and Little, Brown’s Ursula Mackenzie,’ ascended to senior roles just under a decade ago. Yet, over five years, they were ‘all replaced by men.’ This sudden switch illustrates how female progress can, just as quickly, regress.
Nonetheless, these large corporations are not reflective of the entire industry. Independents such as Faber & Faber, Profile Books, and Oneworld Publications, represent a part of the industry that the conglomerates cannot access. As Christopher MacLehose (a publisher with experience in both organisations) states, ‘Any editor today who wants to do interesting work must work for an independent.’ Independent publishers often have greater freedom in what they publish, able to push for projects deemed creatively and financially risky to bigger corporations. Additionally, smaller independent publishers have business models that allow for non-traditional working arrangements. There is greater opportunity to work ‘part-time or more flexibly’ outside the rigid structures of established publishing houses. This majorly benefits women, where much of the struggle in career progression is due to maternity leave and childcare concerns leading to breaks in employment. The flexibility that independent organisations can offer aids this, and gives women greater freedom.
Not only on a corporate level, but within communities, there has been a drive for representation of women in senior positions. Global organisations such as PublisHer have been founded to unite and support women’s careers in the industry. In 2019, Bodour Al Qasimi established PublisHer after her experiences in the Arab Publishers Association. She was often ‘the only woman in the room’ during meetings with publishers, despite ‘many women working in the publishing industry, [at a leadership level] they were not being represented.’ Today, PublisHer aims to empower women within the community through mentoring programs, leadership workshops and networking events. While this social drive cannot instantly solve the disparities in the industry, PublisHer’s efforts foster awareness and solidarity amongst women in the community.
The ‘glass ceiling’ is far more complicated than a clear-cut barrier; women have progressed in some, but not all, sectors of the publishing industry. As individuals have ascended to senior roles, the glass ceiling has certainly cracked. However, we will only know if it is truly broken when women’s access to leadership becomes sustained rather than fleeting. Although the ‘C-suite’ has not been completely overcome, the fact that women regularly (if not permanently) hold positions of CEO and Managing Director should be celebrated. Whether this progress can be sustained – and replicated in other industries – remains to be seen.