Boardrooms remain very much ''no go area'' for women

The number of top UK companies with women in their boardrooms has fallen for the third year running.

Only 57% of FTSE 100 companies had any female directors at the end of last year, compared to 58% in 2000 and 64% in 1999, according to the Centre for Developing Women Business Leaders at the Cranfield School of Management. However, women were more likely to be found on the boards of the most successful companies - 17 out of the top 20 FTSE companies had women directors. And for the first time there were three companies with three female directors each - Marks and Spencer, Legal and General and AstraZeneca.

There has been a very slight increase in the total number of directorships held by women, up to 6.5% of all seats available, compared to 5.8% in 2000. There are currently 58 women holding 66 non-executive directorships and 10 women executive directors.