Women are now really on the verge of breaking the glass ceiling

Women may finally be on the verge of breaking the FTSE 100’s glass ceiling, research from the Mail on Sunday has found.

The number of female CEOs currently stands at ten and has been low for years.

Yet women hold the top financial roles at almost a quarter of the UK’s leading companies.

Since a CFO role is often a stepping stone to a promotion to a CEO position, either at the same company or elsewhere, this suggests that women are ready for a big breakthrough.

There are now two dozen female finance directors in the FTSE 100, up from 15 in 2019.

The highest paid female chief executive is Julie Brown, who earned £4.8 million at pharmaceutical giant GSK.

Her boss, Emma Walmsley, is once again the highest-paid female CEO in the FTSE 100.

Aradhana Sarin, Brown’s AstraZeneca counterpart, was not far behind on £4.4m. Sinead Gorman at oil giant Shell and Helen McCabe at aerospace engineering firm Rolls-Royce both earned just under £4m.

A report from the FTSE Women Leaders Review has found that the percentage of women on board positions within the FTSE 350 has risen to a record high of 42 per cent, compared to just under a quarter in 2017.