Newly-released statistics indicate women are winning more places on top companies' boards and Business Secretary Vince Cable has said he is confident the UK will meet the target of 25% female representation by 2015.

Figures from pressure group Women on Boards show that for the FTSE 100 19% of directors are female, compared with 17.4% recorded in its May 2013 survey and 12.5% when Lord Davies first reported on the issue in February 2011.

Most of the increase is due to the rise in the number of female non-executive directors (23.8%), which is up from 15.6% in February 2011 and up from 22% in May 2013. There are much smaller proportions of executive directors who are women (6.1%), although this is up from 5.6% in May 2013 and 5.5% in February 2011.

There has also been an increase in the number of all-male boards in the FTSE 100 over the last six months. That figure stood at an all time high in May 2012 with 95 companies, compared to 79 boards with females on them in February 2011, but the figure has now decreased to 94 companies.

In contrast, figures for the FTSE 250 show 199 boards with females on them, up from 188 in May 2013. For the FTSE 250 14.9% of directors are female (up from 7.8% in February 2011 and up from 13.8% in May 2013). Again, most are NEDs (18.6%, up from 17% May 2013) while the number of 5.4% of executive directors are women has declined from 5.7% in May 2013 to 5.4% currently.

Business secretary Vince Cable said: 'Businesses are clearly still striving to get the right mix of talent around their boardroom table and we must not lose that momentum. We have until 2015 to reach our target of 25% of women on the boards of listed companies which Lord Davies set us two years ago. With today's encouraging figures, I am confident we can get over the finish line.'

Calculations by BIS suggest that in order to reach Lord Davies' target, FTSE100 companies need to appoint 66 more female directors in the next two years.