On the day the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) regulations come into force, new research shows London has become a welcoming environment for gay and lesbian employees.

Financial services recruiter Joslin Rowe surveyed more than 3,500 candidates for City roles and collated information on sexuality for diversity monitoring purposes in the last two years. It revealed the number of respondents who identified themselves as gay or lesbian had risen from 5.9 percent two years ago to 8.2 percent in the last 12 months.

This coincides with legislative changes and a diversity drive in the financial services industry and indicates of the 900,000 people working in banking, finance, and insurance in London, 73,800 are gay or lesbian.

Tara Ricks of Joslin Rowe said: "Traditionally the City was perceived as white, heterosexual and male – which put off many gay and lesbian applicants. Times have changed and diversity is now at the centre of recruitment and human resources policy. Many firms now actively target gay undergraduates, for example, something that was not the case five or ten years ago. The trend has now seen City firms grow the proportion of their staff who are gay – up to 8.2 percent of the workforce and overtaking the current national average of 5.9 percent."

In Joslin Rowe’s research, women in the City were far less likely to identify themselves, even anonymously, than men as homosexual. Tara Ricks added: "The reluctance of women to come out as lesbians possibly reflects the fact that women already feel they have to fight hard to maintain equality with men."

"Of course there is no reason why people should disclose their sexuality at work - it is irrelevant to their ability to do the job. In an ideal world we wouldn’t be counting anyone. But these are not exercises designed to label people. They have been created as positive tools to measure and encourage progress - rather than relying on mere compliance to drive change."