A survey of nearly three million people found that - of those at senior board level - only 44 were ethnic minorities. This represents just 3.4% of senior managers.

There were no black or other ethnic minority chief executives in the companies surveyed.

And there were no black or Asian permanent secretaries in the government departments which took part in the research.

Retailers employ most

The campaign group Business in the Community said there were definitely not enough black and Asian managers at any level of UK plc.

A lot of businesses... are not used to having senior managers of black or Asian descent in the management ranks

Brenda King

But it said it had found that major employers were trying to tackle race equality in the work place.

The report showed that of the 1.5 million people employed by financial institutions only 1.6% were from ethnic minorities.

Retailers were the biggest employers of ethnic minorities which made up 8.4% of the workforce.

But these were usually non-management jobs.

Reluctant to take risk

Brenda King, is a senior manager at Consignia, but said that as a black woman she had found it difficult to get to that level.

To make things happen there has to be very positive leadership from the very top of an organisation

Mike Fairey Lloyds TSB

"A lot of businesses, including Consignia, are not used to having senior managers of black or Asian descent in the management ranks."

She said that meant they were reluctant to take the risk of appointing ethnic minorities to the senior jobs.

"A lot of companies bring in equal opportunity schemes, they focus on getting people in," she told BBC News.

"What they don't do is focus on schemes to develop people so they start moving up the organisation," she added.

Positive leadership

Mike Fairey, the deputy chief executive of Lloyds TSB and one of the report's authors, said he thought things would change quite quickly for the better.

"These things don't happen overnight," he told BBC News.

It's about changing culture, it's about changing attitude," he said.

"To make things happen there has to be very positive leadership from the very top of an organisation," he added.

The survey found that in the private sector, BT had the best record for race diversity, and in the public sector the army was best.

The survey covered 99 private and public sector companies and organisations.

New strategy

The oil company BP announced yesterday that it was trying to make its workforce more diverse.

The chief executive, Lord Browne, told a Women in Leadership conference that he wanted to recruit more foreign nationals as well as more women, and gays and lesbians.

He said he wanted to employ the most talented individuals - "men and women regardless of background, religion, ethnic origin, nationality or sexual orientation".