About 55 per cent of working women say they are being held back from landing senior jobs by the need for more flexible working arrangements.

Caroline Monro, the curatorial director of Wildlife Sydney and Australian zookeeper of the year in 2017.

Yet only 33 per cent of working men agreed that this was an obstacle for women, found an Australian survey coinciding with International Women's Day (IWD) 2019 on Friday.

The survey of 1000 working Australians aged 18 to 65 by demographers McCrindle Research shows most people welcome and support the need for female leaders, yet a significant gap remains between male and female workers on how to achieve it.

Half of respondents thought "there was room for improvement" when it came to getting women into senior leadership roles. Three in four thought achieving equal representation of women in the workplace was important.