Do Black Women Need to Leave the UK to Succeed? The Hard Truth About Opportunity and Barriers
In April 2014 I was quoted in Pride Magazine (not a cover girl yet but I'm working on it) "Do Black Women Have To Leave The UK To Be Successful?". Unfortunately I cannot find a link to the full article online but here is an image from the print version. The piece looks at the high number of black women who leave the UK for overseas, in particular The USA to find success. This country is hard for
In the piece I was quite adamant that Black women should really be focusing on their countries of origin for love and support, with so many opportunities across Africa and The Caribbean I could see why I said it. Whilst I still think, as members of the Diaspora Black women should look to our countries of origin for support & opportunities, I must say that I do think that Black women deserve to be recognised in their birth countries or their countries of residence. Black women in the UK and indeed across Europe struggle to be acknowledged the fight is tough but certainly worth fighting or is it?
We do not live in a vacuum and deserve to be given the same opportunities as women from all backgrounds. We should not have to leave The UK to find success. It is a challenge but if we all leave to go to The US who will be left. I understand from a business and economics perspective that we must go where success and money finds us, I would never in a million years discourage a Black woman from leaving this country to find her dreams elsewhere but I would love us to keep uplifting each other and encouraging each other to remain here. It’s hard though and the reality is that there are more stories of us having to leave in order to truly thrive than we care to admit.
Do Black women need to leave the UK to be successful? It’s a question that provokes discomfort, defensiveness and sometimes even denial but it’s also a question rooted in real experience. For many Black women navigating the British professional and business landscape, the message is loud and clear, even if it’s not spoken outright: success has limits here and they aren’t self-imposed.
From corporate boardrooms to creative industries, from academia to entrepreneurship, Black women in the UK often find themselves hitting invisible walls. They’re celebrated for resilience and strength but rarely rewarded with resources. Their ideas are borrowed without credit, their presence tokenised but not empowered. The data backs this up whether it’s the leadership gap, the pay disparity or underrepresentation in high-growth sectors, it’s not just a feeling it is a fact.
So when some Black women look beyond Britain’s borders to the USA, to African nations, to Caribbean nation; to countries where their ambition isn’t stifled by microaggressions and underestimation it’s not escapism it is actually a survival strategy. In environments where Black womanhood isn’t completely undermined, some women are finding space to breathe, to lead, to thrive on their own terms. That is not to say that there a not issues and flaws in other countries or that anti-blackness only exists in the UK but there are some unspoken limitations places on Black women here that we cannot ignore.
But leaving isn’t always an option, uprooting your life, culture and community isn’t easy and it shouldn’t have to be the price of progress. The real issue isn’t whether Black women should leave the UK to be successful; it’s why the UK still isn’t a place where their success can fully take root. The UK must stop patting itself on the back for diversity wins that don’t come with power-sharing. True inclusion means not just opening the door but handing over the keys.
So maybe the better question is this: Should Black women leave the UK to be successful or should the UK finally become a place where they don’t have to?
