The 2026 Parker Review shows continued progress in overall ethnic minority representation across senior British business leadership (FTSE 100 and 250). Yet beneath this progress sits a persistent and widening gap: black leadership remains significantly underrepresented at both board and senior management levels.
Similarly to the 2025 review, we need to see more granular reporting that separates out black representation, targeted development and succession planning for black talent, and explicit attention to this gap in board evaluation and search processes. Only by doing so can UK businesses ensure that black professionals progress at rates comparable to both white and other non‑black minority peers, rather than remaining persistently under‑represented in the country’s most powerful corporate roles.
Overall ethnic minority progress
The Review reports continued progress across UK business leadership.
In the FTSE 100, 98% of companies now have at least one ethnic minority director. In the FTSE 250, 82% meet the target, while 42% of large private companies have already met the 2027 target.
Ethnic minority directors now hold:
This represents clear progress since the Review was launched. However, the data also shows that this progress is not evenly distributed across ethnic groups.
Progress is not reaching black leaders
The Review highlights a concerning trend: black representation at both board and senior management level has either stagnated or declined slightly since 2024.
Indeed, black representation in senior management is where the disparity in ethnic minority representation is most pronounced. Black senior managers in FTSE 100 UK based businesses represented 1.3%, down from 1.5% in 2025, roughly one third of the black working-age population share of 3.9% (p.26).
Across FTSE 250 Senior Management black representation remains unchanged from 2025 at 0.8%, which is likewise well below working-age population demographics (p.58). Large private companies have seen a 0.5% increase in representation of black senior managers from 1.3% in 2025 to 1.8% this year (p.63). However, this remains well below hitting proportionate representation levels.
The central question: why is there slower representation for the black community?
The Review identifies four critical structural causes for the disparity.
Due to the fact that black representation is low across senior management generally, this limits board candidates. If a strong pipeline for black talent is not built and supported, boards can only look laterally for members. This limits candidate options and creates a self-fulfilling cycle.
At the beginning of the pipeline for graduates, black and asian graduates are 33% and 25% less likely to receive an offer (p.21). This finding compounds with our own research which found that black graduates are disproportionately rejected during application processes, being two times less likely than their peers to secure a job role in the targeted industries (https://www.blacktalentcharter.com/knowledge-centre/research/why-we-need-to-fix-the-broken-pipeline-for-graduate-black-talent-in-the-uk).
The majority of FTSE 350 ethnic minority directors are not UK citizens (p.26). Without a strong pipeline UK black talent is underrepresented in leadership, which can be overlooked and obscured within data reports. It is important to consider nationality as well as ethnic heritage and socioeconomic background to understand the full picture of the landscape for black talent in British business.
The Review also highlights the limitations of treating the black community as one homogenous group within diversity strategies. In reality, black professionals come from a wide range of national, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, and the barriers they face are often shaped by the intersection of these factors. Addressing these disparities requires initiatives that recognise this diversity and apply targeted interventions across the leadership pipeline. Yet many initiatives remain too broad, meaning the specific barriers facing black talent often go unaddressed.
Conclusion
The Parker Review has played a critical role in improving ethnic diversity in British boardrooms. However, the 2026 findings show that progress is uneven. Without targeted action to address the specific barriers facing black professionals, from recruitment through to senior leadership, the gap will persist.
If British business is serious about building truly diverse leadership pipelines, it must move beyond broad ethnic diversity targets and focus on the structural barriers that continue to hold back black talent.
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