Just one in every eight of the bosses of big Irish companies are women, it has been revealed.

New figures show a stark gender imbalance among top executives in the country’s major companies, although the situation improved slightly in the last two years.

Less than a third of all senior executives are women according to a new report.

Just over 13pc of chief executives and 28pc of chief financial officers are women. In total, 30pc of senior executives in large enterprises with over 250 employees are women.

This is a slight increase from 28pc two years ago, according to the Central Statistics Office’s second Gender Balance in Business Survey 2021.

There has been a similar small increase in women in boardrooms, with female representation rising 2pc from 20pc in 2019 to 22pc last year.

However, 86pc of the chairpersons of these boards are men.

Companies involved in administrative and support services had the highest proportion of female board membership, at 33pc.

Construction companies had the highest male board membership, at 94pc. Some of the big companies with women bosses include Cathriona Hallahan at Microsoft Ireland, Anne O’Leary at Vodafone, and Caroline Keeling at Keelings fruit firm.

Statistician Colin Hanley said men occupied 87pc of CEO positions in January this year, down slightly from 89pc in 2019.

“We would like the figures for women in senior roles to be higher but are delighted it is not going backwards,” said country executive officer at the 30pc Club Ireland, Gillian Harford.

Her organisation aims for a minimum of 30pc women on boards and in so-called ‘c-suite’ or executive management positions within a company.

She noted the figures show the number of female chairpersons doubled from 7pc to 14pc since 2019.

“I spend so long looking at this on an international basis, so part of me was going ‘Oh my gosh, what a great improvement’,” she said. “It has been far worse. Firstly, to see an improvement in almost every figure between 2019 and 2021 is really positive, particularly when you look at the period that’s happened in between.

“There have been so many stories about how women have been impacted more by Covid and lockdown.”

When her organisation started in 2015, there was no data like this.

“To have companies committing to such research and on a regular basis so we can see what is happening is a good start,” she said.

Her views on the reasons for the lack of gender balance is a combination of factors, including the kind of access women get to particular roles.

“We see very balanced numbers in HR, marketing and legal, but in revenue generating roles feeding into CEO positions, there is an imbalance on the technical side,” she said.

“It goes back to graduate entry point.”

Almost three in 10 enterprises had at least 40pc female representation at senior executive level. A total of 18pc had female representation of at least 40pc on their boards.

Of the senior executive appointments in the last year, 36pc went to women.