Women believe their best opportunities for advancing to executive positions are in health care and education, according to a new poll.

In a survey of 500 female managers in Canada, those two so-called traditional sectors topped the list of potential growth areas for them in the next three to five years, cited by 58% and 52% of respondents, respectively.

Other fields with room for advancement, according to the women polled: the non-profit sector (35%), financial services (32%), hospitality (29%), professional services (23%), the public sector (22%) and information technology (11%).

Respondents were less optimistic about their executive opportunities in areas still considered to be male dominated: engineering and construction (6%), oil and gas (3%), and transportation and logistics (2%). 

Manufacturing came in at the very bottom, cited by just 1% of those polled.

Ipsos Reid conducted the survey June 18-25 on behalf of staffing firm Randstad Canada. A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.