Ellie Benton and Laura Lane

Published 13 August 2026

Leadership 2025 is a charity that works in the social housing sector to increase ethnic diversity in leadership. While social housing residents and staff are ethnically diverse, this is not reflected in the sector's leadership. Established in 2015, Leadership 2025 was created to support the career development of ethnically diverse professionals and address barriers to their progression into leadership roles. Through its leadership development programme, the charity has supported five cohorts of emerging housing leaders. As 2025 marks a key milestone, Leadership 2025 commissioned LSE Housing and Communities to explore progress over the past decade, examining initiatives to promote ethnically diverse leadership, what has worked, and what more the sector needs to do. This report presents the findings. This research was carried out in early 2025.