More than 50 members of the high-performance coaching community gathered for the first Annual Assembly for Women in Coaching with the collective aim of driving meaningful change and increasing diversity within the coaching workforce across high-performance sport.
Hosted in partnership by UK Sport, UK Coaching and the UK Sports Institute, the event in Birmingham was attended by coaches and leaders from 39 different National Governing Bodies and sports agencies.
Laurie Marsden, Coaching Support Advisor at UK Sport explained: “This event was designed to anchor our commitment to understanding and supporting meaningful change. We hope to build a community who assemble on an annual basis to ask questions of ourselves and of one another to support progress.
“We deliberately invited coaches and leaders, which reflects our beliefs about the conditions necessary for change. We recognise the important role of leadership in understanding coaches’ lived experience and using this to develop cultures, policy and practice that support more equitable environments.”
Throughout the day, those in the room took part in a number of thought-provoking tasks and discussions, as well as finding out more about recent research from Leeds Beckett University’s Centre of Social Justice in Sport and Society, UK Coaching and the UK Sports Institute’s Women Thriving project.
UK Coaching’s “Coaching in the UK 2024” research shows a 6% drop over two years in the total number of female coaches, coaching at all levels. However, there is a 6% increase in female coaches at international level and an increase in the number of women coaches being paid.
Emily Handyside, Coaching Team Lead at UK Coaching, said: “We have seen some really positive changes in the number of women coaches supporting World Class Programme athletes, what we haven’t seen is the same positive movement across the whole system.
“This event is about bringing key people together from across the system to understand where those numbers are dropping, where they’re improving and how we can be really focused in our efforts to make a difference. It’s reinforced the need to keep listening to coach’s lived experience and work with the coaches on this.”
One of those in attendance was Tracy Whittaker-Smith, former Performance Director and Head National Coach at British Gymnastics and now a High-Performance Consultant. Tracy, who supported the design and delivery of the event, explained that action was at the heart of the group's intentions:
“These past couple of days have been about more than conversations, they’ve been about onboarding a community, connecting, and setting the foundation for real change. But this is just the beginning. The work happens over the whole cycle, and this summit is about action. By sharing real coaching stories, challenging the norm, and making sure the right people are listening, we can create real momentum,” she said.
While the majority of attendees were female, there were also a number of male allies in the room, including Chris Stott, Head of Coaching at British Shooting.
He explained his motivation for attending: “I want to understand more about the current opportunities and challenges for women in coaching and what I can do in my role to understand and support more women coaches to feel like there's a way into sport and how to best support them once they’re there.
“Spending time with people with lived experience, with different perspectives, from different sports, is key for me to be able to do my job effectively and to enable other people to follow a career in coaching.”
The second Annual Assembly for Women in Coaching is already scheduled for 11-12 March 2026 in Manchester.
Find out more about UK Sport, UK Coaching and UKSI