THE director-general of the BBC is to leave the corporation later this year, possibly opening the door for the appointment of the broadcaster's first female leader.

Mark Thompson, whose reign has been dominated by budget cuts and other crises, announced the move in an email to staff after a meeting with Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust.

Several leading female broadcast executives are believed to be contenders for the role.

They include Helen Boaden, the head of BBC News, and Caroline Thomson, the BBC's chief operating officer.

Dawn Airey, president of UKTV, whose channels include Dave and Watch, ITV news director Deborah Turness and Sophie Turner Laing, the managing director of entertainment and news at Sky, are also thought to be in the running.

Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television, is also thought to be a contender.

With nearly eight years in the job, Mr Thompson has been the BBC's longest-serving director general since the 1970s.

As well as overseeing successes such as Strictly Come Dancing and Frozen Planet, he launched the cost-cutting Delivering Quality First plan.

The move was forced by a tough TV licence deal with the government, and will result in 2000 job losses and £670 million of savings.

In Scotland, the plan will cost between 100 to 120 jobs, although more BBC Scotland programmes will appear on the UK network in the coming years, making up more than 8.6% by 2016-17.

Whoever follows Mr Thompson will have a smaller salary than the £671,000 he received, due to a pledge to cut management costs.

In a message to BBC staff, Mr Thompson said: "This morning I told Lord Patten I believe that an appropriate time for me to hand over to a successor and to step down as director-general of the BBC would be the autumn of this year, once the Olympics and the rest of the amazing summer of 2012 are over.

"I've always been on the side of change because I believe that change is the only way of safeguarding what is so precious about the BBC.

"But change always brings disruption and uncertainty in its wake, and I do want to say a particular thank you to everyone who has worked with me in the difficult task of transforming the BBC.

"Trust and approval are at record highs, our services are in brilliant creative form and we've demonstrated beyond contradiction that the BBC can be just as much of a leader and innovator in the digital age as we once were in the analogue one."

Mr Thompson landed his role amid the controversy of Lord Hutton's report into the death of Dr David Kelly eight years ago.

This criticised the BBC for how it reported information supplied by the Government weapons expert, who later took his own life, about the reasons former prime minister Tony Blair gave for invading Iraq.

Lord Patten paid tribute to "an outstanding director-general", saying: "He took over during a traumatic period in the corporation's history and enhanced its reputation for creativity and quality, while setting the course for the BBC's digital future."

Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, said: "Mark has been a brilliant director general. His priority has been the delivery of great content and services to audiences across the UK.

"BBC Scotland is well on the way to building network business to 8.6% of the BBC's network programming spend by 2016. This was the figure Mark set as a floor at the official opening of BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay centre in 2007."