‘We have a lot more work to do,” says Facebook as it reveals diversity figures for first time

Across the whole business, the percentage of Facebook's global female employees stands at just 31 per cent, this dropped to 15 per cent within the tech division and 23 per cent at senior level.

Ethnic diversity at senior level was equally unbalanced, with 74 per cent of its execs being white, 19 per cent Asian, four per cent Hispanic and just two per cent black.

"As these numbers show, we have more work to do – a lot more," said Facebook said in a blog post. "But the good news is that we’ve begun to make progress."

“Diversity is something that we’re treating as everyone’s responsibility at Facebook, and the challenge of finding qualified but underrepresented candidates is one that we’re addressing as part of a strategic effort across Facebook.”

The figures comes after

“>Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg admitted at the Cannes Lions festival

“We don’t expect women to be computer scientists and we don’t expect black people to be computer scientists. So they don’t code,” she said. “We don’t expect minorities in most countries to be leaders and so we don’t – the images that we produce, the marketing that we do – this community can and is starting to change in how we market to women and people so that any child out there of any race or background can believe that they can do anything because they can visualise it and see it.”

Last month, Google also published data about the diversity of its workforce for the first time and similarly admitted that it is "miles" from where it wants to be.

The search giant’s team is comprised of 70 per cent men and just 30 per cent women, while data from the US shows that 61 per cent of workers are white, 30 per cent are Asian and just two per cent are black.