It’s common knowledge that investment banks aren’t exactly bursting at the seams with senior female bankers. But a new study suggests top women may be even rarer than they seem.

The study, by recruitment firm Coleman Parker, found that a mere 10% of people in front office roles at director level and above in large investment banks are typically women. At smaller UK-based financial institutions that proportion fell to a miniscule 0-2%.

At the very best performing banks 17% of fee earners at director level and up were women.

Vanessa Coleman, managing director of Coleman Parker, tells us the research was undertaken on behalf of a client. “All the banks are asking themselves why there are so few women at senior levels,” she says. “50% of graduate trainees are female and that number narrows to around 2% at the top. It’s particularly acute in fee earning areas, where the hours are longer.”

Coleman says there are more women working in the back office and investment management roles than in investment banking, a fact confirmed for us by the head of front office HR at a US investment bank. “It’s easiest to offer flexible working practices in the back office and investment management,” he says. “It’s most challenging in corporate finance and trading.”

The figures might seem to suggest that small UK-based banks and corporate finance boutiques are bastions of male chauvinism. By Coleman cautions against leaping to this conclusion. “There are fewer women in those companies simply because they have fewer people full stop,” she says. “In many cases there were only three MDs and none were women.”