Research produced by the investment platform of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s easy family of brands shows that men outnumber women in the £100,000 plus earnings bracket by four to one.

In 2016, 680,000 of the 860,000 high earners in the UK were men, equating to 79%. These figures are based on HMRC data, which is only publicly available up to 2016. The 79% figure represents a marginal improvement since 2011, when men accounted for 83% of high earners.

EasyMoney estimates that if this rate of progress continues, the gender pay gap for those in the £100,000 plus earnings bracket will not close until 2055.

Nevertheless, in spite of slow progress over the past five years, there were a number of bright spots in the data: the overall number of female high earners grew by 75% during the period – almost double the rate of growth for high-earning men.

Andrew de Candole, chief executive of easyMoney, commented: “There is still a long way to go – even though there are cracks, the glass ceiling is very much still there. The trends are in the right direction but progress is very slow.”

He added that the pay gap means that women are left with less money to save over the course of their careers, compared to their male counterparts. This means it is important to shop around to get the most attractive interest rates on investments.

“With women starting off behind men on the amount they earn, they need to get better returns on the money they save in order to catch up,” he added.