eFinancialCareers

Female bankers have largely failed to claw their way up the career ladder in Scotland, according to one top headhunter.

Douglas Kinnaird, director of Macdonald Kinnaird in Glasgow, has been recruiting executives for over 20 years.

Over that period he’s compiled figures for the number of applicants for roles that have been female. This has totted up to a measly 4.8% this year – up from 3.2% when he compiled the last tally in 1997.

These figures might be cause for concern, but Kinnaird reckons attitudes have shifted: “The vast majority of my clients – particularly before the turn of the century – would say if you gave them two equal candidates they would take the female.”

“They desperately want females. Most employers are concerned about the gender imbalance – it’s everywhere in Scotland.”

HBOS now has a division called Women in Business that is aiming to tackle the issue. One of the main problems, reckons director Clare Logie, is women’s lack of political savvy, which is one of the things the initiative teaches.

“We help women become more effective in company politics without becoming something they don’t want to be,” she says.

Ernst & Young in Scotland says it aims to increase the proportion of female partners to 20% by 2011, “without diluting our requirements”.

Meanwhile, figures from wealth manager The Route suggest that among its clients, which obviously only includes those doing well enough to merit the services of a wealth manager, female finance professionals earn 30% less than their male counterparts.