Forty per cent of senior management positions were held by women in 2025, but just 25.9 per cent of chief executive roles, according to an analysis of Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) data.
This reflected a near-10 per cent rise from 2015, when women held only 15 per cent of chief executive roles.
But while progress had been made, women's "path to the top is uneven" with women leaving leadership roles at higher rates, the Gender Equity Insights 2026 report, produced with Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, revealed.
Women held 36 per cent of board seats in 2025, however only 21.5 per cent of board chairs were women.
Men made up about 22 per cent of workers in health care and social assistance, but held half of chief executive and head-of-business positions.
Full-time female managers were promoted more often than their male counterparts in 2024-25, but female managers resigned at a higher rate, and resignation during paid parental leave was also higher among women, the report found.
"We've made progress getting women into the workforce and into management, last year's data analysis - first time entry into a management role it was about a 50-50 split," WGEA chief executive Christine Castley told AAP.
"But it is that piece around retention post-entry into management, which has given rise to what we call ... the 'missing middle'.
"What is it about leadership roles that makes talented people decide that they can't stay?"
A lack of flexible work options at the top may be contributing to these issues.
Only 13.2 per cent of employers had designed management roles for part-time work, and one quarter of organisations measured or evaluated their flexibility.
Ms Castley said companies needed to invest in better workforce data to keep track of where talent is being lost, and understand how jobs could be redesigned to ensure everyone has a chance to progress.
"Flexibility, of course, is about much more than part-time (work)," she said.
"Workplaces and employers need to start thinking about whether they can translate those flexible work policies they have into good practical action that works for that management level."
The report calls for employers to design more flexible management roles that do not limit progression, and to measure recruitment, promotion, pay and retention outcomes by gender to identify where women are falling out of the pipeline.
Shared caring responsibilities should be supported, with men encouraged to take parental leave, and return-to-work pathways strengthened.
Companies with more females on their board, or led by women, ranked among the strongest performers in their industries, the research found.
Among the ASX-listed companies studied, those with the highest women's board representation were top business performers in 28 per cent of company years, compared with 18 per cent in the lowest quartile.
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