Live Recruitment Diversity Report 2026
Thoughts derived from Laura Kelly, Managing Director of Live Recruitment
01 April 2026
The Live Recruitment Diversity Report 2026 provides a second year of insight into representation, pay and progression across the UK events industry. Drawing on data from over 48,000 professionals within Live Recruitment’s network, the findings highlight both encouraging signs of representation and clear areas where inequality remains.
The industry continues to demonstrate strong female representation overall, with females making up 59% of the workforce. However, this balance is not reflected consistently across senior leadership roles. While females dominate junior and mid-level positions, males hold a greater proportion of senior roles, reinforcing the “leaky pipeline” seen across many industries. This suggests that progression into leadership remains an important area for organisations to address, particularly through leadership development opportunities, flexible working practices and inclusive workplace cultures.
Pay disparity also remains a significant issue. The data shows that male professionals earn on average around £4,000 more than female professionals, while White/Caucasian professionals also earn more on average than those from Ethnically Diverse backgrounds. When gender and ethnicity are combined, Ethnically Diverse females consistently report the lowest average salaries. The data also indicates that salary expectations mirror these patterns, with females and Ethnically Diverse professionals typically reporting lower desired salaries than their counterparts. These findings highlight the continued importance of transparent and equitable pay frameworks across the sector.
When looking more closely at individual sectors, additional nuances emerge. Within the Conference and Exhibition Organiser space, male salary ranges are notably wider than those of their female counterparts. This may in part reflect the structure of sales roles within this sector, which tend to be more proactive and commercially driven, and have historically attracted a higher proportion of male professionals compared to more reactive sales environments such as venues. This dynamic may also contribute to the significant gender pay disparity seen in this sector - particularly notable given that females make up a higher proportion of the workforce here, exceeding the overall industry average.
A similar pattern is seen when looking at ethnicity within this sector. While salary differences broadly align with wider industry trends, ethnically diverse male professionals report comparatively higher earnings. This may reflect the international nature of conference and exhibition roles, where there is strong demand for multilingual and globally experienced talent, creating opportunities for candidates from more diverse backgrounds.
In the Exhibition Design and Build sector, the data highlights a different but equally important challenge. The sector remains heavily male dominated, yet still demonstrates a clear gender pay gap, with female professionals earning significantly less on average. This reinforces the need for greater pay transparency and consistency in benchmarking, particularly in sectors where representation is already imbalanced. Encouragingly, there has been an increase in female representation at senior levels within this space, suggesting that progress is being made, however continued focus is required to ensure that this translates into equitable outcomes.
Ethnic diversity within the events industry remains broadly consistent year on year, with around a quarter of professionals identifying as coming from Ethnically Diverse backgrounds. While this compares favourably to some industries, representation at senior levels remains lower and pay disparities persist, indicating that progression and opportunity gaps still exist.
The data also reveals notable patterns around age. The majority of professionals fall within the 32–45 age bracket, while representation declines significantly in older age groups. With more people working later in life, this may suggest challenges around retention, career progression, or recruitment of more experienced professionals within the sector. In addition to this, the 18-31 category has faced quite a rapid decrease showing that the entry routes into the industry haven’t picked up or made any core changes as of yet. The efforts being made within the industry are likely to take some time to affect the wider industry and impact the new cohort of juniors but could we be doing more?
New for 2026, the Event Industry Demographic Insights section provides additional context around socio-economic background. The data shows that 29.9% of respondents attended university and had parents who also did so, while 42% were the first in their family to attend university. This is significantly higher than UK-wide benchmarks, where the proportion of individuals attending university with graduate parents is considerably higher. This suggests that the events industry may offer stronger levels of social mobility than some other sectors, attracting talent from a broader range of educational backgrounds.
Despite these challenges, the report highlights that the events industry demonstrates comparatively strong representation in several areas when viewed alongside other sectors. Increasing industry awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion - alongside greater transparency in reporting - suggests positive momentum for future progress.
By building a deeper understanding of the workforce, the industry can continue working towards more equitable and inclusive career opportunities for everyone.
Please click here to download the full report.
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