The promotion practices of Barclays have been scrutinised by a new report which found that the British bank overwhelmingly opts to hand senior roles to men.

According to a report from Reuters, the bank promoted 85 people to managing director in its investment bank – with 85% of that total being men.

The report comes amid ongoing scrutiny over the banking sector's approach to gender equality, and highlights that the finance sector has one of the biggest gender pay gaps in the UK. Barclays' own pay gap report showed that the investment bank had a mean average pay gap of 43% in favour of men in 2021.

The newswire’s calculation that 15% of promotions are not men indicates that the bank has taken a backwards step. The last time Barclays provided a breakdown in its promotion numbers was 2018, where it showed that 27% of those promoted in the investment bank were women.

Barclays previously said that it aims for 33% of its managing directors and directors to be women by 2025, with the total as of the end of 2021 standing at 28%.

The unwelcome report comes a day after Barclays promoted consumer banking head Alistair Currie to chief operating officer of its investment bank.

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