Macquarie Bank chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake says the relatively low number of female executives at the bank “should have been fixed a long time ago” after salary data showed average pay in the group’s top band is $601,000 yet only 37 per cent of employees at that level are women.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency on Tuesday published the average pay gap of every business with more than 100 employees and revealed salary data for each.