Only about one-third of managers in the financial services and insurance sector are women, new data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows.

Almost 55% of sector workers are women, but only 36.2% of managers are female and there are only a handful of chief executives, the report says.

It means the sector ranks 18th out of 19 in terms of its ratio of female employees to female managers. In last place is agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Financial services and insurance also has the highest gender pay gap (31.9%), followed by healthcare and social assistance (31.7%) and professional, scientific and technical services (26.6%).

The agency’s data is partly based on telephone surveys. About 54% of financial services and insurance respondents have carried out gender pay gap analyses, while companies in the sector are most likely to conduct such a process in the next year (66.3%).

The overall gender pay gap has been between 15% and 18% for about two decades, according to agency director Helen Conway.

“Some of the highest gender pay gaps are found in female-dominated industries, including healthcare and social assistance and finance and insurance services,” she said.

In September the agency will launch a guide to achieving pay equity, a national workshop series on the subject, an updated pay equity calculator, case studies and a directors’ toolkit.

The resources are being developed with employers such as KPMG and Commonwealth Bank.

Pay equity workshops for employers will be held in Sydney and Melbourne in May.