Women managers working in the HR sector have dropped four places in the female earnings league table and are earning on average £8,000 less than male colleagues; according to a new survey.

The National Management Salary Survey published by the Chartered Management Institute shows that women HR managers have an average pay rise of less than 1%. The average salary is £41,035 for women compared to £49,161 for male managers.

Lagging behind the pay stakes is not consistent across the sector however, on average women HR managers are earning more in research and development roles than their male colleagues £45,100 compared to £44,347.

In further bad news for HR professionals, comparatively by sector, HR pay is dropping down the earnings league table. The average salary rise is 5% for female managers, across the UK, compared to less than 1% for women HR professionals.

Leading the way for gender equality, however, women have shown that they are making headway in the boardroom. The number of women directors has leaped from less than one in 10 to one in seven over the last five years, according to the survey. Today 31.1% of the management population is female, compared to 22.1% in 2000 and less than 2%, when the survey began in 1974.

Women managers are also demonstrating sticking power with the proportion of female resignations falling from 6.4 to 5.3% over the past year, whereas male resignations have jumped from 3.3 to 4.2% over the same period.

Physical location was also found to play a part in earnings potential. Women managers in inner London topped the charts with the highest average income of £44,981 while those in East Anglia came in last with an average salary of £31,067.

Christine Hayhurst, director of professional affairs at the Chartered Management Institute said: “The research is immensely encouraging, but there is a long way to go if women are to achieve true parity in the workplace.

“There is still only one female chief executive in the FTSE-100 and while there is a significant change in the number of women holding senior leadership positions, they are a minority.”