Live Recruitment has released its 2025 Diversity Report, which gives an overall insight into the diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) of the UK Events Industry.
This report provides a valuable snapshot of DEI within the UK events industry, the largest of its kind in the history of the sector, allowing businesses to benchmark themselves both against the wider sector and their specific niche within it.
The findings in the report are based on data from Live Recruitment’s network of over 40,000 event professionals.
Gender:
The events industry is predominantly female, with women making up 59.1% of the workforce. However, the data shows that at the junior and middle levels, there is a larger ratio of females, with this group making up over 60% of the total workforce for those stages of career. However once reaching the senior levels, the male group percentage rises disproportionately
Across the events sector as a whole, there is a significant pay difference between male and female events professionals. The data shows that the average salary for male events professionals is £40,478 whereas the average salary for female event professionals is £36,947. This data shows that male event professionals are earning approximately £3,500 more than females.
Ethnicity:
The data shows that the events industry is made up of majority white/Caucasian event professionals. This group makes up 75% of the total event professionals, whereas ethnically diverse groups make up only 25.1%.
The pay gap is also broadened further when comparing the salaries of white/Caucasian event professionals and ethnically diverse event professionals. The average salary for White/caucasian event professionals is £39,253, which is higher than the average pay of £35,845 for ethnically diverse groups.
If you split this by gender the data shows that white/Caucasian females are being paid approximately £1,700 more than ethnically diverse females and white/Caucasian males are being paid approximately £4,500 more than ethnically diverse males. When comparing these 2 data sets, overall white/caucasian males are paid significantly more than the next two groups of ethnically diverse males and white/caucasian females, who in turn are paid more than ethnically diverse females.
Age:
The data shows that 32-45 age bracket has the largest number of event professionals (50.2% of sector) and that there is a significant drop-off in the number of event professionals in the 46-59 (11.1% of the sector) and 60+ age brackets (just 1.5% of the sector).
The data shows that this is the case across both genders, although male event professionals make up a higher proportion of the 46-59 age bracket (15.4%) that female event professionals (9.8%).
The report also breaks down DEI by sectors – read the full report here.
