Women in Film and TV

"The latest Diamond Report is a timely reminder that progress and parity aren’t necessarily the same thing. It is of course encouraging to see that women now make up over half of off-screen contributions, but this statistic is only part of the story. Women are still under-represented across certain genres of programming, within senior leadership, and across many of the leading creative roles in film and television, signalling the urgent work that still needs to be done.

At WFTV, much of our remit is centred around closing these gaps and empowering women to step up. Our mentoring and leadership programmes have never been about teaching women how to do their jobs better, but rather providing them with the support, networks, and confidence they need to thrive in an industry that is systematically stacked against them. 

One such way we do this is by limiting barriers to access. Our team demonstrate a great deal of care in facilitating our initiatives and programmes; really thinking about what works for our cohorts - from offering travel bursaries to ensuring participation can accommodate around caring responsibilities (which we know disproportionately falls on women). These things all sound small in isolation, but if more organisations followed the same small principles by default, it’s clear that we’d see these gaps begin to close more quickly. If we want to see more women in leadership positions, we have to stop expecting them to fit around systems that were never designed with them in mind. 

The Diamond Report shows that there is still work to do. My hope is that organisations across our industry commit to investing in programmes and initiatives that support talented women not just to enter our industry, but to stay, thrive and lead it.”

Katie Bailiff, CEO
Women in Film and TV,
July 2026