Female Coaching Network and Women in Sport Launch Groundbreaking Project to Build Sustainable Coaching Pathways
The Female Coaching Network (FCN), in partnership with Women in Sport (WIS), is proud to announce a transformative new project: “Building Sustainable Pathways for Female Performance Coaches in Individual Sports in the UK.” This strategic collaboration aims to develop an evidence-based, long-lasting framework that drives the selection, development, and progression of female coaches across individual sports disciplines.
The initiative builds on the FCN’s pioneering work in Track & Field between 2020 and 2024, which focused on implementing systemic change in high-performance coaching environments. That groundwork has already begun to reshape how national teams are staffed—creating safer, more effective, and athlete-centred coaching systems. Now, that impact is set to grow.
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The project will identify best practices, review current policies, and design targeted interventions. With the support of national governing bodies (NGBs), coaches, and key stakeholders, the model will expand to encompass other individual sports, ensuring that all pathways are grounded in athlete needs and performance demands.
Through data-led evaluations, collaborative engagement, and long-term monitoring, the project will deliver a practical, replicable framework to empower sports organisations to better identify, nurture, and elevate talented women in coaching.
This work is part of a wider project, funded by Sport England and led by Women in Sport to transform the experiences of women in coaching. We know the challenges are deep-rooted: societal attitudes, gender bias, hostile cultures, unequal access to opportunities, an impossible work-life balance. To make the change there needs a united, strategic approach that works at scale and at pace – across all sports, all organisations that will benefit everyone – men and women. The Women in Coaching Taskforce will build a shared understanding that leads to lasting change and ultimately, better environments to support more women in coaching.
Vicky Huyton, Founder of the Female Coaching Network, said:
“This project is about creating real, tangible change across the coaching system—not just ticking boxes. By leveraging the insights we’ve gathered over the past three years, we’re setting the stage for a shift in how international team staff are selected and developed, ensuring these decisions centre around athlete wellbeing and performance. We hope this will spark wider systemic changes, especially with the upcoming Commonwealth Games offering a unique opportunity to showcase the power of inclusive, performance-focused coaching structures.”
The initiative is timely, as UK ports looks to improve gender diversity and equity at all levels of performance coaching. With continued underrepresentation of women in high-performance coaching roles, especially in individual sports, this project is a decisive step towards lasting cultural and structural reform.
Lisa West, Head of Policy, Partnerships and Public Affairs at Women in Sport, said:
Over the last few years, we have seen such progress in the growth of women’s sport, celebrating an increase in professionalisation, more investment, and a recognised need to understand female biology. However, a major part of the sporting system that has seen little progress is coaching. We know that female role models are vital for girls and women to thrive in sport and coaches are key to this. There are still far too few female coaches across all levels of sport, particularly at elite. With a fantastic summer of women’s sport ahead, now is our time to build on the Female Coaching Network’s work and bring this issue, and the solutions, to the front of people’s minds.