Twice as many people are becoming chief executives in their forties as in 1997.

The proportion of chief executives at leading firms who are in their 30s of 40s has doubled in the past 14 years. At the end of 2010 some 41 per cent of FTSE 100 chiefs were under 50, against 20 per cent in 1997.

Recruitment firm Egon Zehnder, which carried out the analysis, said 56 per cent of current bosses were in their 50s and only 3 per cent in their 60s or older, against 70 per cent and 10 per cent respectively previously. But the Footsie chiefs are not representative of boardroms which which are generally getting older.