Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie most admired man, woman

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been named the world's most admired man and Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie the most admired woman in a YouGov survey.

Philanthropist Gates and humanitarian Jolie have topped the poll in each of the annual surveys, since the study introduced separate rankings for the sexes in 2015< report CNBC.

For its latest survey, the market researcher interviewed over 37,000 people from 35 countries, with the final figures calculated by the percentage share of admiration each person received overall.

Digging deep into the global rankings for both sexes, both top 20 lists highlight certain themes.

When it comes to the most admired women, entertainers are extremely popular with close to 75 percent of the top 20 having a career in acting, television or music — Jolie, Madonna, Emma Watson and Taylor Swift all feature in the top 10. However, humanitarian work also features prominently, with Jolie, Watson and Malala Yousafzai all in the top 10.

Businessmen, sports personalities and politicians feature among the 20 most admired men, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Vladimir Putin and Jack Ma.

YouGov even analyzed the level of admiration between U.S. leaders Donald Trump and Barack Obama. In the global study, Trump came in 17th place compared to Obama's second place. In the U.S.' individual rankings, however, Obama came first, while Trump jumped to second place. Bill Gates came fifth on the domestic list.

According to YouGov, in the list of global-only figures, Obama came in top in 19 of the nations surveyed, in comparison to tech pioneer Gates, who got six. However, Gates topped global rankings, as Obama ranked lower in nations including China and Russia, the researcher states. In the female rankings, former First Lady Michelle Obama came second globally, but was first domestically.