In 2024, The FLIP (Female Leadership in Publishing) ran its first ever publishing workforce survey.
In 2025, we wanted to take a look at what’s changed.
Building on our 2024 report and factoring in respondent feedback, 2025's survey contained new questions on caring responsibilities, neurodiversity in the workplace and the use of AI - three areas we’ve cast a spotlight on in this year’s report. Our surveys are designed as a ‘temperature check’ for the publishing sector and are open to professionals at all levels, from all backgrounds, and of all identities. As ever, we actively encouraged all individuals working in publishing to participate, providing an opportunity to voice their thoughts and feelings about their workplace experiences.
The survey aimed to:
acknowledge and celebrate the things that make publishing great;
provide a comprehensive and genuine understanding of the career experiences of publishing professionals across the UK;
identify and call attention to areas that need improvement;
provide ideas for potential solutions; and
following The FLIP’s mission, drive positive change within the industry to foster a more inclusive and rewarding work environment for all.
Over 600 people responded, sharing their honesty and experiences with us as well as their insight into how to make the industry better.
Although this number was less than last year’s, we still found it invaluable to see areas of improvement and decline in our statistics. As ever, we were completely blown away by the honest and brave reflections shared by respondents, especially on deeply personal issues. Although it’s easier to talk about mental and physical health in the workplace and reported rates of imposter syndrome have declined, we’re still seeing the same dissatisfaction around pay, progression and workload sustainability.
We’re so grateful to everyone who took the time to fill out our survey, because it’s through that honesty and trust in The FLIP’s mission to make the publishing industry better from within that we have been able to pinpoint exactly where we can all help to drive change, whether that’s on a personal, managerial or company-wide level.
We then presented the results at Hachette’s carmelite house, in collaboration with Hachette’s gender balance network in an event that looked how we can use data to close the happiness gap.
Inspired by Femonomics by Corinne Low, we used the survey as a springboard to look at how we can use the data that has historically widened divides around gender, neurodiversity and class to help close it. Our aim was to help our audience reflect on some of the things that they might be struggling with in their careers and offer practical advice to navigate any challenges or issues. We wanted to create a sense of openness and honesty that we bring to our interviews, paired with a sense of community and companionship that makes our FLIPside newsletters so much more fun and personal.
Led by Claire Shanahan, CEO of the Women’s Prize Trust, Yan was joined by Katie Espiner (CEO of Adult Trade, Hachette UK) and Kirty Topiwala (Executive Publisher, Hodder, and editor of Femonomics) as they discussed the disconnect in workplace experience vs. salary in those with caring responsibilities, the importance of setting boundaries that work for you and what they’re most hopeful about in the future of the industry. You can listen to the full audio recording of the panel discussion and questions below.
As with our 2024 survey, the Bookseller attended the event and ran an exclusive feature the next day, sharing stand-out statistics with the industry and summarising some of the key takeaways from the panel.
As always, we at The FLIP are lucky enough to do what we do because of the vision of its founders - Ella Horne, Helena Gonda and Sophie Christopher who sadly passed away in 2019. Everything you see is in honour of Sophie’s legacy and it will always one of the things that makes running The FLIP such a privilege.