Over a Third of Women Drink Beer. Only 7% Make It.
Every year, the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) publishes its Independent Beer Report - the most comprehensive look at who's brewing, who's drinking, and where the industry is heading. And every year, we read it closely, because buried in the data is the story of where women sit in British beer: as consumers, as workers, as makers, as leaders.
This year's report is just out, and is worth your attention. There's plenty to be optimistic about, and quite a lot of work still to be done - many of which links to our mission.
21% of brewery owners are women. That's actually the figure we find most interesting. One in five. Not negligible - but nowhere near enough. And the report tells us that women’s brewery ownership exists alongside a culture where only 7% of brewers are women, where banks fund almost nobody (just 7% of breweries secured high street bank loans), and where the tied pub market locks out the beers people actually want to drink.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Without the representation of women and the inclusion of women’s perspectives in the workplace, it’s incredibly difficult to engage women as consumers. This is a significant commercial disadvantage.
Did you know that by 2028, women will own 75% of the discretionary spend, making them the world’s greatest influencers?
The time to actively strive to engage women where they currently feel excluded is now.
Here are the key headlines for us.
1. Women beer drinkers are growing, but are still underserved
36% of women consumers now say they drink beer.
That's over a third of all women, up +3% on last year. The demand is undeniably there.
Women are drinking beer, and more of us are, year on year, yet the industry that produces that beer looks nothing like us. That's not a coincidence - it's a deep rooted and ongoing structural problem.
2. Women brewers are scarce and declining
7% of brewers are women. Down -1% on last year.
Despite women making up 31% of the indie beer workforce overall, the top creative/production role remains almost exclusively male. This is the glass ceiling in plain sight.
3. Women are running the back office, not the brewery
72% of admin & accounting staff are women.
Women are present in the industry, just consistently accessing support roles, not craft ones.
Let that sink in. Women make up nearly a third of the indie beer workforce (31%), but only 7% of the people actually brewing. We're running the spreadsheets, not the mash tuns. It would seem that's not a pipeline problem - that's a culture problem.
4. Taprooms are the exception
50.3% of taproom staff are now women.
Taprooms are increasingly the public face of independent brewing - community spaces, direct-to-drinker experiences, the places where people fall in love with beer. For the first time, women are the majority of taproom staff, reversing the balance from last year's report. Is bar work just more accessible to women who want to work in beer and see limited options to do so?
5. Top level brewery leadership is 79% men
21% of brewery owners are women.
This is new data, unlocked by Women On Tap working in partnership with SIBA in acknowledgement of the missing vital dataset.
This is more encouraging than brewer numbers on face value, but this figure also masks the gap. One in five brewery owners is a woman, yet the industry narrative rarely centres female entrepreneurship in brewing.
It’s great that the top level is 21% women with the autonomy to drive change, but how many of those women sit alongside a male partner or colleague with equal decision-making status, and how might this impact that autonomy?
One to watch over the next few years.
6. Cask ale is failing women
Only 13% of women beer drinkers drink cask ale* - down nearly 10% year-on-year.
(*compared with 36% of men)
What’s going on with cask and women beer drinkers? Cask is meant to be Britain's great beer tradition, but it's a tradition that women are, by the numbers, increasingly walking away from. Is this about taste, or decades of marketing that said this beer isn't for you, in pubs that didn't always feel safe or welcoming?
The future health of cask depends on engaging new and diverse drinkers. The industry is failing to do this.
7. 18-24-year-olds - the most diverse generation - are the most enthusiastic beer drinkers
38% of 18–24-year-olds now say they drink beer.
This is a significant jump of +10% on last year - the biggest year-on-year rise of any demographic in the survey.
What’s more, 89% of that same age group say it's important to have beers from small breweries available in pubs. Gen Z isn't just drinking beer - they're demanding independent beer, diverse beer, beer with a story behind it. That is an enormous opportunity for an industry willing to meet them where they are.
8. The industry plans to create lots of new jobs this year
SIBA member breweries plan to create 786 new jobs in 2026. Who will fill them?
This number is up significantly from 557 last year. That's real opportunity. The question is who those jobs go to, who gets invited to apply, who feels welcome enough to walk through the door. Right now, 31% of the indie beer workforce is women. With nearly 800 new roles on the horizon, the industry has a genuine chance to shift the dial - if it wants to.
A few last thoughts
The SIBA report doesn't set out to be a gender equality document. It's a commercial overview of the independent brewing sector. However, read with our mission-led perspective in mind, it tells a very specific story: women are drinking beer in growing numbers, women want independent and varied beer, women are working in the industry - and yet women are still systematically excluded from making it and really, truly influencing the industry in the numbers we need to see.
Women On Tap Advisory Board member, Laura Emson, attended the SIBA report launch event:
"This report is genuinely exciting - not because everything is rosy, but because the opportunity it reveals is enormous. The audience is there, the appetite is there. The industry just needs to reflect that better - in who makes the beer, who leads the breweries, and who feels truly welcome in the pubs and taprooms.
The data also shows us where we can help. Women already make up the majority of taproom staff, and one in five brewery owners is a woman - those are foundations to build on. Women On Tap exists to accelerate that progress, working alongside our industry partners to turn promising numbers into lasting cultural change. 2026 feels like a real moment of opportunity, and we intend to make the most of it."
All statistics drawn from the SIBA Independent Beer Report 2026, published April 2026. Consumer data from a YouGov survey commissioned by SIBA.
This is the easiest way for an organisation to support us - by becoming an industry member. As a thank you, we send you quarterly updates, members get to use our digital member badge to show they support us and our mission to make beer more inclusive for women, and there are other opportunities to have input and access to things like advertising jobs or other opportunities in our newsletters.