(Bloomberg) -- The average number of women leaders in the UK’s top financial firms flatlined in 2021, the latest sign of how remote the prospect of gender parity remains in the male-dominated City of London.

The proportion of female leadership across the sector remained flat at 33% in 2021, according to the UK Treasury’s fifth annual review of its Women in Finance Charter. While two-thirds of the charter’s 209 signatories either increased or maintained the proportion of women in senior management, the proportion fell for the other third.

Reasons for the slowdown included the impact of the pandemic, low management turnover and organizational restructurings that impacted on the diversity of leadership, according to the report.

“We are stagnating,” Amanda Blanc, chief executive officer at Aviva Plc and the government’s women in finance champion, said in the report. “We have to crack this -- so let’s accept this warning and redouble our efforts.”

Of the 76 signatories with a 2021 deadline, 45 hit their targets. Payment network Mastercard and fintech Wise were among those to miss their targets.

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