LinkedIn research across 27 countries has found that women hold just 13% of C-suite AI leadership roles, despite AI generating some of the fastest-growing jobs in the labour market. The report, released Tuesday, shows women are being locked out of the sector's most senior and highest-paid positions even as demand for AI talent surges.
Job postings for AI roles have roughly doubled since 2023. AI Engineer has overtaken Machine Learning Engineer as the most common AI role on the platform, and VP of AI postings have increased about sixfold. Women are not sharing equally in that growth.
Women's share of AI roles is around 10 percentage points lower than their share of non-AI roles. At AI-focused companies, women's share of the workforce is about five percentage points lower than at comparable non-AI firms. That gender gap widens by a further 15 percentage points at the C-suite level.
The gap persists within AI roles
The underrepresentation is sharpest in some of the sector's highest-paying positions. Women hold just 20% of Head of AI roles, 26% of Director of AI roles, and 18% of Member of Technical Staff positions.
"The roles that pay more tend to have a higher share of male hires. Head of AI and Member of Technical Staff roles are among the highest-paid AI jobs, and women make up less than a quarter of hires in both categories," the report read.
Conversely, women are more likely to be employed in lower-paid AI roles. The most gender-balanced AI role is Data Annotator, where women represent more than half of hires. LinkedIn said the position has lower specialised education requirements than other AI roles, and its hourly, project-based, frequently remote nature makes it more accessible to women who may be balancing paid work with caregiving responsibilities.
"But this exception also reveals a deeper problem. Data annotation is more accessible and more gender-balanced, but it is also one of the lowest-paid AI roles," the report read. "In other words, women are better represented in the part of the AI labour market with lower pay, while they remain underrepresented in the highest-paying AI roles."
For HR professionals, the findings point to a hiring pipeline problem that starts well before the C-suite. The data suggests that AI for Human Resources teams need to examine not just who gets hired into AI roles, but who gets promoted within them.
What the data shows
"AI is creating some of the fastest-growing and highest-value opportunities in the labour market, but women remain underrepresented at every stage: getting hired into AI, reaching its highest-value roles, and leading the companies shaping its future," said Audrey Lobo-Pulo, Head of Public Policy and Economic Graph at LinkedIn Australia and New Zealand.
The report underscores that the gender divide in AI is not just about who gets access to the roles, but also who gets access to its highest-paying opportunities. The findings cover LinkedIn data from 27 countries and examine hiring patterns across the AI sector.
Why this matters for HR
HR leaders reviewing their AI hiring and promotion practices should compare gender representation at each level of their AI teams, not just at entry points. The LinkedIn data shows that even when women enter AI roles, they stall below the top-paying positions. For CHROs building AI talent strategies, this means examining promotion criteria for roles like Head of AI and Director of AI, where women hold less than a quarter of positions. A structured approach to AI Learning Path for CHROs can help leadership teams identify where bias enters the talent pipeline.
"If women are underrepresented in the roles shaping AI, companies and countries are leaving talent, perspective, and growth potential on the table. We need to ask what employers, institutions and workforce systems need to do differently so more people can enter and lead in the AI economy," Lobo-Pulo said.
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