Stephanie Hilborne OBE
CEO, Women in Sport
Women’s sport is booming, but behind the headlines, coaching is still failing women. Research shows the issue isn’t recruitment but a system pushing women out.
Women’s sport is growing; our national teams are achieving global success and breaking records, but the system shaping sport hasn’t kept pace.
Stop trying to fix women
There are still fewer women coaches than men, despite years of effort to create balance. Our research reveals the problem is the system, not the women.
Drawing on the experiences of more than 2,000 coaches, ‘Reimagining Sport Coaching: Designing a System That Works for Women’1 finds that coaching remains one of the most male-dominated areas of sport. Women are entering both voluntary and paid roles, but the environment doesn’t support them in staying.
Women coaches can help girls stay and thrive in sport and challenge outdated ideas about leadership and authority. Without them, we limit the impact sport can have on the lives of everyone involved.
Coaching offers little long-term security. Men are almost twice as likely to hold full-time roles, while women are more likely to be unpaid, on zero-hours contracts or working without agreements.
Progression is unclear — just 12% of women1 receive regular feedback. Bias still shapes who is seen as a ‘real’ coach, with women 18%1 less likely to feel heard and respected — a gap that widens at higher levels of sport.
Thirty percent of women coaches report bullying, compared to 15% of men.1 Despite 95% of organisations1 claiming zero tolerance, many women avoid perpetrators rather than report them, showing a lack of trust in reporting systems.
Men are almost twice as likely to hold
full-time roles, while women are more
likely to be unpaid, on zero-hours contracts
or working without agreements.
The opportunity for change
We can retrofit women into a system that was never built for them or redesign it with better conditions.But change requires clear action, including tackling misogyny through policy and training, gender budgeting to expose and address inequality and gender-balanced leadership.
Sport reflects and shapes society. If every young person is to thrive, we cannot accept a system that quietly filters women out.
[1] Women in Sport. (2026). Reimagining sport coaching: Designing a system that works for women. https://tinyurl.com/svvb4t4e.
