So far in Series 22 of Strictly, male pros (Aljaž, Vito and Gorka) dancing with female celebrities have dominated the top two spots on the judges’ leaderboard with 7 of their routines earning the highest two scores in Weeks 1-3 compared to 2 in those spots by female pros (Amy and Nancy). This is despite their minority in terms of numbers overall this year.

An exploration of the data shows this to be an enduring trend on the show as male pros dominate on almost every performance metric, and yet the brilliant female pros and their partners still win when it comes to Strictly’s most important statistic of all, and we think 2024 could see them adding to this tally.

The Data

Notes about the Data

* 151 male celebrities; 2 female celebrities.

** 153 female celebrities; 3 male celebrities.

*** Data for 2518 dances scored by the judges out of 40 (or 30/50) is included. There have been 2531 couples’ routines overall, but 13 unscored Show dances from Series 2-6 have been excluded.

**** 22 couples have been eliminated during Semi-Finals (12 male pro-female celebrity, 10 female pro-male celebrity); 1 couple (AJ Odudu & Kai in Series 21) reached the Final but could not perform due to injury.

^ To calculate averages, dances scored out of 30 or 50 have been converted to a score out of 40.

^^ These include 3 perfect scores of 50/50 from Series 7 and 6 scores of 30/30 from Series 18.

+ Eliminations include those resulting directly from public vote and from dance-offs.

Female Pros vs. Male Pros

1. Dances

Male pros have danced 172 more routines than female pros (a 53.4% to 46.6% split) and though there is a slight majority of male pro partnerships (156 vs 153) overall, this small difference cannot account for so many more routines performed by male pros.

The contrast in number of routines performed is understandable when viewed together with the progression data (3 below) which shows that more male pros make it through to each of the three final stages of the competition, and so perform more dances.

2. Winners

Female pros dancing with male celebrities have won 12 times in the twenty-one series to date. This achievement is even more impressive considering how outnumbered they often are in the final stages. This is one of just two stats where female pros outperform the men, but it’s surely the stat that counts.

There are two female pros who have won twice – Aliona in 2011 and 2015, then Oti in 2019 and 2020. No male pros have yet won twice, and Oti is the only pro to win back-to-back Series. Vito, dancing with Sarah Hadland, has a chance to match Oti’s record this year – time will tell.

3. Progression (Quarter-Finalists, Semi-Finalists and Finalists)

More male pros than female pros reach the latest stages of the competition and are Quarter-Finalists, Semi-Finalists and Finalists, but they can fall short at the final hurdle.

From 28 appearances in a Final, female pros have won 12 times (a 42.9% success rate) compared to 9 wins from 38 appearances by male pros (a 23.7% success rate).

4. Average Score

Male pros have an almost 2-point higher average score than the female pros (30.5 vs 28.6 points). Again, understandable when we can see that they tend to stay longer in the competition, perform more dances and also earn more high scores as performances, celebrity skill and judges’ generosity usually all increase with time throughout a Series.

5. 10s Awarded

63.5% of all the 10s awarded until now have been given to male pros. Most of these 10s (672/731) have been awarded for routines with female celebrities; however, it is notable that 59 were awarded to male pros dancing with male partners (John & Johannes – 28 tens in 2021; Layton & Nikita – 31 tens in 2023). To date, no 10s have been awarded to female same-sex couples dancing on the show.

Consistently high performances across multiple Series of such pros as Giovanni (98 tens), Pasha (93 tens), Kevin (77 tens), Gorka (65 tens) and more recently Vito (with 47 tens awarded in just two years) help explain the predominance of tens awarded to male pros compared to female pros.

Oti is the female pro with the most tens (60 in total) and comes fifth overall on this metric, next comes Aliona with 42 tens, which places her 7th.

6. Perfect Scores

This was the stat that surprised us the most; 63 of the 91 perfect scores (that’s 69.2%) have gone to male pros; 6 of these were awarded to same-sex couples (2 to John & Johannes in 2021 and 4 to Layton & Nikita in 2023).

With the predominance of female pros currently, will 2024 start to see this imbalance addressed?

Also of note is the fact that despite scoring more than two-thirds of the perfect scores awarded, more male pros have won without earning a top score in their winning Series than is true for female pros. Lilia (with Darren Gough in Series 3), Camilla (with Tom Chambers in Series 6) and Aliona (with Jay McGuiness in Series 13) all won without a perfect score. Among male pros, four have won without a perfect score: Brendan (with Natasha Kaplinsky in Series 1), Matthew (with Alesha Dixon in Series 5), Artem (with Kara Tointon in Series 8) and Kevin (with Stacey Dooley in Series 16).

7. Leaderboard Toppers

Female pros have made 99 appearances as table toppers compared to 189 achieved by male pros – almost double. Would the judges be as surprised by this statistic as we were? We’d love to ask them how they would explain it – maybe Claudia can put it to them in the Clauditorium?

8. Bottom 2 Placings, Dance-Offs and Eliminations

Data from the bottom of the Leaderboard seems more evenly split in terms of male and female pros than data from the top, especially in relation to eliminations which currently stand exactly equal at 112 for both groups.

A second stat where the female pros (slightly) outperform the men is Bottom 2 placings. 51.6% of the Bottom 2 placings are male pros compared to 48.4% female pros, so fewer female pros end up bottom or second-from bottom with the judges but the difference is slight and there have actually been 6 more female pro appearances in dance-offs.

This may be because Karen Hauer, with 102 performances, has had to dance-off twenty-six times, which is 11 more than the next highest pro, Brendan Cole on 15. Karen has a great survival rate; her 10 eliminations mean she has survived more dance-offs than she has lost. If you could choose someone to dance-off with (and not against), Karen would be the one.

Final Words

So what does all this mean?

There are certainly interesting trends and differences in the data when we compare male and female pros and their partners on different performance dimensions, and so far in Series 22 the pattern of male pros dominating the higher scores and top spots on the judges’  leaderboard persists.

With 8 female pros and 5 male pros remaining in this Series, the data from 20 years suggests we may be in for Series with fewer very high or top scores overall. The first three weeks suggest average scores could be higher – but this may be due to more couples regularly receiving higher scores of 30 or more than a few couples receiving several very high or perfect scores. In Movie Week on Saturday, nine out of 13 couples scored 30 or above and just 4 points separated the top and bottom couples in this group. On the other hand, could their majority help make this a stand-out season for Strictly’s female professionals and their male partners? It will be very interesting to see.

With a numerical dominance in this year’s line-up and a higher success rate at converting appearances in a Final to lifting the glitterball, it is clear that a thirteenth win for a male celebrity dancing with a female pro could well be on the (dance) cards this Series. However, with female celebrities like Tasha and Sarah doing consistently well in the first three weeks, it seems unlikely we’ll see the first all-male celebrity Final in fifteen years.

We are hoping that 2024 will see some gains across all these performance areas for the female pros and their partners but there’s definitely a sense that the statistics defy easy predictions of any kind. Winning is probably just as much down to that unquantifiable ‘X’ factor appeal some partnerships achieve with fans as it is to do with any metric a performance can be measured on.