More than two-thirds of female investment bankers believe they are not paid as much as their male peers for doing the same job – casting doubt on executives’ regular insistence that the sector’s yawning gender pay gap is largely due to a lack of women in senior roles.

Investment banks are under pressure to bolster the number of women in their senior ranks, but a survey of 430 female professionals by Emolument, the pay benchmarking website, and Wessex Partners, the executive search firm, shows women receive less than their male colleagues in the same role.