According to a new report, the total number of female directors in the UK has risen by about 24 per cent over the past five years indicating growing opportunities for the fairer sex in the British society.

The new study by Experian also showed that higher female appointments as larger companies begin to close the gap with smaller companies in hiring women. The study, which included 2.7 million British businesses, studied of male and female directors of UK businesses between 2007 and 2012.

The data showed that the number of increase in female directors since 2007 was higher than male appointments by about 24 per cent compared with 15 per cent. The survey also pointed out that the starting up of new businesses by women contributed to the rise in the number of female directors in the country.

About a third of the 1.4 million businesses that started since 2007 have one or more female directors and thus added 523,000 female directors. The data also showed that 297,000 women were directors at firms that were closed down since 2007.

Max Firth, UK managing director for Experian's business information services division said that the smaller firms are still ahead of larger firms in hiring female directors.