A quarter of board directors at firms and organisations in the European banking and finance industry are women, and almost one in five (18%) executive committee (exco) members are female, according to recently published research conducted by the think tank New Financial.

The report shows that these figures are close to the FTSE 100 average, where 27% of board positions and 19% of exco roles are held by women. The research also found that the percentage of women on boards has increased by five percentage points and female representation on excos had risen by three percentage since New Financial published its first report in 2014.

New Financial said the figures showed that all sectors had improved over the past two years.  More than half (55%) of companies had increased female representation on excos over the past year, and almost half (48%) had improved gender diversity on their board. However, New Financial said it was not the time to get complacent – while progress had been made, there was still work to be done. If the target of 33% female representation on executive committees by 2020 recommended by the Hampton-Alexander Review is taken as a guide, the industry on average would miss it by four years, New Financial said.

There is a marked difference between boards and executive committees, the research found. Average female representation on boards at banks, for example, stands at 33%, which is more than double the number on excos at 13%. On average, gender diversity on boards is more than a third higher than on excos.

There is a wide range of gender diversity across different sectors in our sample New Financial said. Average female representation on excos is 9% for hedge funds and 10% for private equity, rising to 30% for regulators and 31% for trade bodies. The 25% average female representation on boards disguises the lack of women holding executive director positions, New Financial said. The proportion of female non-executive directors (26%) is more than twice that of female executive directors (12%), the research fond.

The research also revealed that women who do sit on excos tend to be in support roles rather than in C-suite or revenue generating functions. Nearly two-thirds of heads of human resources (64%) and more than half of heads of communications (56%) who sit on excos in our sample are women, but only 14% of heads of division or region, 12% of the C-suite, and 7% of CEOs are female New Financial found.

In the UK last year’s review into women in the financial sector, led by Jayne-Anne Gahdia chief executive of Virgin Money, led to the creation of the women in finance charter. Signatories to the charter commit themselves to improving diversity by having one member of our senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion; setting internal targets for gender diversity in their senior management; publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on our website and having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity.