From the professional game through to recreational and community cricket, the ECB Coach Development team is driving a marked increase in coaching diversity through targeted interventions and expert programme development.
The aim is to improve on-field performance at the highest levels of the game by harnessing the different perspectives of the latest generation of coaches and the expertise across the elite of women’s cricket. The aim is also to create a new generation of high-profile female cricket coaches which is likely to inspire other women and girls to take up recreational cricket.
“We’ve really felt a strong alignment to the Inspiring Generations strategy, particularly around developing the most inclusive team sport,” says ECB Head of Coach Development Diccon Edwards, who began his role in February 2025.
Edwards adds: “What that led to was prioritising objectives around the development of a diverse coaching workforce. We wanted a workforce that’s inspiring and representative of society, and that has the benefit of diversity in all its aspects – whether that’s gender, cultural, cognitive, or anything else – because the power of that diversity and the richness of that environment can drive inclusion, belonging, and ultimately create a legacy for cricket.”
The ECB’s Coach Development Strategy focuses on three things: a diverse workforce; qualified and highly skilled coaches; and inspired and highly skilled coach developers.
To deliver this, targeted interventions are required now, to have long-term impact. In the last year, just under one in four (22.5%) of all registrants on coach development programmes have been female.
At the highest level, a new Female Professional Player to Coach programme enrolled its first cohort in November 2025. Since then, the 12 players involved – including former England players Alice Davidson-Richards and Fran Wilson – have attended workshops and received one-to-one guidance on their coaching development.
When the programme was conceived, only one of the Tier One or Tier Two professional female teams had a female head coach. The ECB Coach Development team expects that figure to change significantly in the medium term.
Edwards says: “With the investment into the women’s game, we now have a group of players who unquestionably have the knowledge, awareness, and understanding of being a professional cricketer, as well as extremely high tactical understanding. Their experience is outstanding, so this programme has been designed to help them package all that expertise in a way that helps them to share it with other players in the professional game.”
A broad, 18-month framework was developed to enable the cohort to access group workshops, individual mentoring, and vital coach development support including detailed coaching observations and feedback. “The response we’ve had has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Edwards.
But it is not just at the elite level of women’s cricket that key initiatives are producing tangible results.
The ECB is also putting financial resource into making cricket the most diverse sport in the UK, funding more than 1,000 coaching bursaries in 2025. More than half (51%) were awarded to women and 22% went to coaches from ethnically diverse communities.
For the last six years, the England and Wales Cricket Trust has provided over 7,000 bursaries for counties to increase the diversity of the coaching workforce by supporting learners from underrepresented groups to make their first step into coaching, gain a qualification or taking the next step on their coach development journey.
There has been a significant rise in female-only coach development offers and, since May 2024, The Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund has also been used to encourage more females into coaching and create a network of female coaches that offer insight and help to overcome existing barriers.
The Evolve programme has also helped to increase the number of female coach developers working across England and Wales, whose role it is to support and develop coaches across England and Wales. Across 2024 and 2025, 34 of the 66 people on the ECB Coach Developer intakes were female.
ECB Coach Development Learning Design and Game Insight Lead Martyn Kiel says: “We know about the power of role models and the phrase ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ has never been more true, so the Evolve programme makes sure female coaches interested in becoming ECB Coach Developers are provided with individualised support. That helps to inspire more women to take up coaching and helps us achieve a more gender-balanced coach developer workforce.”
Edwards says: “If we’re trying to create a sense of belonging, then that involves a sense of feeling seen, heard, and valued. All of those things help to drive that sense that women can say ‘yes, cricket is an environment for me. I can speak up. I understand how I can go about progressing my coaching ability. And I understand what my opportunities are to access qualifications or get jobs.’
“We want people from every background to think that a career in cricket coaching is an option, and to know that they’ll be a part of a truly inclusive culture.”