While the proportion of female professors in British institutions has grown slightly, as of the 2006/07 academic year only a fifth of the country’s professors are women, according to a new report.

The report from the Higher Education Statistics Agency revealed that women make up 17.5 per cent of all professors in the UK, an increase from 16.7 per cent in the 2005/06 academic session. This is despite the fact that females account for more than half of all staff employed in higher education.

The report showed the women are also underrepresented in senior lecturing and research positions, with only 36.8 per cent in this category being female. However, 62.6 per cent of all non-academic members of staff at British universities are women.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union, welcomed the increase, but warned that there was no reason why women should be underrepresented in the highest jobs in academia.

She said: “As head of an organisation with women in its two most senior positions, I am pleased to see the rest of the higher education sector is slowly starting to catch up. There is no reason why more women should not be in the top jobs in our universities and being properly paid for their work.”

The report also showed that there has been an overall increase in the number of female academic staff in the UK, comprising 42.3 per cent; up from 41.9 per cent in 2005/06.

Ms Hunt added: “Fair, open and transparent recruitment and promotion procedures are in everyone’s interests, not just women. What is equally important for the future is that institutions act to ensure equality of opportunity at every point so that women who are at the start of their academic career will face fewer obstacles in getting to the top.”

The report, which covered all publicly funded institutions in the UK, also indicated that women are more likely to work part-time than their male counterparts. Whilst only a quarter - 26.8 per cent - of male academics were employed on a part-time basis, this figure was 41.8 per cent for females.