The pay gap between male and female directors has closed slightly but remains considerable, according to new research.

Law firm Fox & Partners says the average pay for women in board director roles in the FTSE 100 is now 69% lower than their male counterparts, down on last year’s 70%.

However, the figures for executive director positions are better. Fox finds female execs in the FTSE 100 earn, on average, £2,332,334, compared to men who pocket £3,150,424: figures that represent a 29.8% pay gap.

There are currently only nine CEO positions held by women in the biggest firms.

Catriona Watt, a partner at Fox & Partners, says: “It’s encouraging to see the gender pay gap has slightly shrunk over the past year for directors of the UK’s largest businesses, but obviously, the figures show that there is still a considerable way to go.”

The Fox research comes just a week after headhunters Russell Reynolds said its examination of the UK’s largest listed companies found that only 32% of executive roles across leading c-suite positions (CEOs, CFOs and COOs) were held by women. Just 12 companies could boast they had achieved gender parity, an equal split between men and women, in their boardrooms.

There have been warnings about the number of women in talent pipelines for boards before. In the spring, a report from specialist headhunters Green Park said that both women and people from minority ethnic groups were failing to make it into pipeline roles such as leading departmental or business units.

Raj Tulsiani, chief executive of Green Park, said the lack of diversity in pipeline roles means companies have little choice but to create boardroom representation through non-executive roles rather than the leading c-suite jobs.

Sir Trevor Phillips, chair of Green Park, warned that while some sectors had “embraced” diversity, others had become “passive” and were waiting for change to happen organically. He added that “success does not come from just hoping for better outcomes; it follows determined, intentional evidence-based action”.

Green Park found around 17% of chair roles in the FTSE 100 were held by women. The biggest area of progress was CFO roles, with women now holding 23% of the top 100 jobs compared to 6% 10 years ago.

There are excellent reasons for gender diversity. But, for some reason, companies still find it problematic to build diverse talent pipelines or equalise their board. That this should still be the case may say much about the effort spent on tackling these issues.