The Female Coaching Network (FCN) is delighted to see its ongoing partnership with UK Athletics formally recognised within UK Athletics’ newly published Diversity & Inclusion Action Plan 2026.
Within the plan, UK Athletics identifies the progression of female coaches as a key priority and confirms its commitment to continuing work with FCN to increase the representation of women within the World Class Programme coaching workforce throughout the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic cycle. The action plan highlights FCN’s role in supporting the progression of female coaches in international and elite athletics and outlines a shared ambition to create clearer pathways and greater opportunities for women within the sport.
This recognition marks another important milestone in a collaborative journey that has been focused on creating meaningful, sustainable change within athletics coaching since 2021.
Over the past year, FCN and UK Athletics have been working together on a groundbreaking international project designed to address one of the sport’s most persistent challenges: the under-representation of women in high-performance team coaching.
Announced in 2025, the partnership brought together FCN, UK Athletics and stakeholders from across the global athletics community to explore how athletics can create more equitable opportunities for women coaches, while strengthening the systems and processes that support coach development and selection. The project was built around a shared vision of creating fair, transparent and athlete-centred environments that enable the very best coaches to thrive, regardless of gender.
Since then, FCN has continued to facilitate conversations, share insights and engage coaches and leaders from across the international athletics landscape. This has included the launch of initiatives designed specifically to connect, support and amplify the voices of female athletics coaches, while creating opportunities for learning, collaboration and professional development across the sport.
The inclusion of FCN within UK Athletics’ official action plan demonstrates a clear commitment from the governing body to continue building on this work. It also reinforces the importance of partnership-led approaches to driving change, ensuring that increasing female coach representation remains a strategic priority rather than a standalone initiative.
While progress has been made, the need for continued action remains clear. Female coaches continue to be significantly under-represented across high-performance athletics globally, despite growing recognition of the value that diverse coaching teams bring to athlete development and organisational performance.
For FCN, the recognition within UK Athletics’ 2026 Diversity & Inclusion Action Plan is not the end of the journey—it is another step forward.
We look forward to continuing to work alongside UK Athletics and the wider athletics community to create a sport where talented women coaches are not the exception, but a visible and valued part of the coaching landscape at every level of the pathway.
Together, we continue to move from conversation to action, and from ambition to lasting change.
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