Data was published last year in a report by the government-backed FTSE Women Leaders Review highlighting a major sea-change, with women’s board representation reaching nearly 40 per cent across the FTSE 100, 250 and 350 compared with 12.5 per cent 10 years ago.

Julia Cater, principal of the Penrith HR consultancy People Decisions, welcomed this. She said: “This is a really good sign of a shift in attitude and culture.

But there is still more work to be done at the management and executive level, where only one in three leadership roles, and around 25 per cent of all executive committee roles are held by women, and there are proportionally few women as CEOs.

“Equally, there are still many companies yet to hit the former 33 per cent board target set by the Hampton Alexander Review. Despite the good news story at board level, women are not breaking into leadership positions commensurate with their presence in the talent pool.”

Julia said the reasons for this were complex.

“Women are more likely to take career breaks or work-life balance adjustments (part-time working) than men which, however wrong, is inevitably damaging for career acceleration.

"In addition, unconscious bias about current performance versus potential remains a significant difficulty for women hoping for a promotion. A study shows that women are consistently judged to have less leadership potential than their male counterparts, making them 14 per cent less likely to be promoted.

"Defining potential is tricky enough in itself, but measuring it is more subjective than measuring current performance, opening the door for bias.”

Julia said another crucial factor is that women are less likely to apply for a more senior role in the first place, even within their own company.

“So is the question of what is holding women back from top management levels more about whether women are holding themselves back?

"There are large numbers of studies that show that women are less self-assured than men, consider themselves less promotion-worthy, predict they’ll do worse on tests, and generally underestimate their abilities.”