In spring this year, we surveyed members about their attitudes to working in governance and views on emerging issues. We asked respondents for their thoughts on the role of governance in their organisation and perceived future threats. Here we share some of our headline findings:
- 80% would recommend a career in governance to someone looking for careers advice. That’s higher than accountancy and twice the number in teaching.
- 77% thought that being Chartered had had a positive impact on their career. We did find a mismatch between members who are senior by experience (52%) and those who have registered as Fellows (26%). If you think you might be eligible, find out more about upgrading your membership.
- 51% reported that the most senior governance professional in their organisation had the title of ‘company secretary’. The second most common was ‘director’ (17%) of which a third included the word ‘governance’, such as ‘director of governance’. Other director titles included ‘director of compliance’ and ‘director of corporate affairs’. ‘General counsel’ was reported as the most senior governance job title by 9%.
- The profession is becoming more feminised. The majority of responses were from women (62%) rising to three quarters (78%) of those in early in their career. There was more parity between genders among senior practitioners.
- Males are more likely to feel valued in their role. Four fifths (80%) of all respondents feel valued in their role. However, females are less likely to agree strongly with this statement (45%) compared to males (54%).
We asked for further comment on the survey. By far the most common was in appreciation of the survey suggesting that members welcome feeding into this type of professional research. Other common comments related to the impact of AI and attitudes towards and concerns about the possibilities of the use of AI will be covered in a separate article.
Understanding what is on your mind is so important to us as your professional membership body. It is reassuring that most members report high levels of job satisfaction; however, we would welcome hearing from those who are earlier on in their career who are less represented in our findings than we would like. Findings from the survey help shape our communications, training and policy activity and I would like to thank all those who took the time to respond.
The full report is available to download now.
