Women in tech: where are we now and what can we do?

The UK’s tech industry has always had a gender imbalance. At CWJobs, we’ve campaigned to encourage more women to join the industry and used our resources to reveals the underlying challenges facing women in tech.

Over the last few years, the industry has seen significant change. From Brexit to COVID-19, tech skills are more in demand than ever. A recent report published by the Office for National Statistics, and summarised by ZDNet, reveals that technology was the third-fastest sector job growth in the UK overall between July and September 2021.

The report also revealed that technology was the third fastest sector for the creation of jobs for women during the same period with 41,000 female workers employed in the sector, compared to 17,000 men. This currently means that of all the new tech jobs created, 71% are being secured by women.

The last few years have also seen the establishment of more industry awards specifically aimed at celebrating the achievements of women, such as the Women in Tech Excellence Awards. We’ve also seen an increase in the number of female guest speakers at tech events across the UK.

However, despite these positive developments, there’s still a long way to go until the industry achieves an equal gender balance. At the time of writing, the womentech network predicts that it will be 73,103 days until the economic gender gap is closed – that’s 200 years away.

And we still see concerning statistics like the fact that 49% of women in the UK tech sector report that they have experienced discrimination.

Let’s take a closer look at the state of gender balance in the UK tech industry and we can do to improve it:

Opportunities for career progression

According to a survey carried out by womenintech, more than half of women aged between 18 and 39 working in tech reported good opportunities to advance their career. This promising statistic shows that the tech industry is perhaps starting to wake up to the benefits of gender diverse teams and putting opportunities in place for women to progress their careers.

Of course, this statistic also shows that there’s much room for improvement. Tech companies need to ensure that they’re providing the types of opportunities that women want. Skillsoft’s 2021 Women in Tech Report revealed a “misalignment” between the benefits women want and what is currently being provided in the workplace.

The majority of respondents (86%) said professional development and training is “extremely or very important to them”, yet only 42% said it’s offered as a benefit. What’s more, nearly one third of women said a lack of training is the biggest barrier to pursuing a successful tech career.

In order to retain top female talent, companies need to listen to their employees and provide the type of learning and development opportunities that they want. Employee surveys, for example, can be an effective way of gathering information on skills gaps in the workforce and providing opportunities to create training and mentoring programmes.

Likewise, providing access to external networks provide women with the resources and information they need to get ahead in the industry. Typically, networking events in IT are male-dominated and with more female-led events, women will have the opportunity to discuss shared experiences and career goals.

There are several female-focused tech events planned over the coming months in the UK including the Women of Silicon Roundabout Conference, taking place in November 2022.

Improving rates of pay

O’Reilly Media’s Data and AI Survey 2021 reveals that women only earn 84% of men’s salaries in these sectors. Despite this disparity, the gender pay gap in the tech industry is actually smaller than in other sectors as the publishing of gender pay gap reports in 2018 showed.

However, there’s still a need for companies to be more transparent when it comes to setting salaries. Statistically, women are less likely to negotiate their salary than men, so being transparent about pay will encourage more women to apply for positions and discuss their salary expectations.

Employers should aim to provide a clear salary scale in job adverts to provide women with an example of what career progression might look like. If women can envisage themselves working for a company with a specific salary attached, they’ll be more likely to apply for roles in the first place.

Removing gender bias at the recruitment stage

By using inclusive language, market insights, and the latest recruitment technology, employers can encourage more women to apply for roles by reducing bias in the recruitment process and create a fairer screening process.

Smart tools, such as the Gender Bias Decoder, can help companies identify gendered words in job descriptions and emails. Adjustments can then be made to ensure gender-neutral language is used in communications with candidates.

Equality Boost is another tool that can help make diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) strategies a reality. Leveraging a unique blend of data science, Equality Boost pinpoints when, where and how to reach the tech talent companies need by demographic, location and interest.

Instant Candidate Recommendation tools can suggest highly relevant and active candidates based on their skills and match to the role. This decreases time to hire and removes bias.Conversational artificial intelligence tools such as Mya can help increase applications by 50% by providing jobseekers with an interactive experience that guides them to the right opportunities in the most efficient way possible.

Partnering with schools and colleges

According to a 2021 report published by STEM Women, the percentage of female graduates with core STEM degrees is still only 26%. This figure is also translated in the female STEM workforce, with women making up 24% of employees. Specifically, computer science and engineering and technology fields show the largest gender imbalances, from current students, to graduates and the workforce.

It’s clear that more needs to be done in the early career stages to make women aware of the opportunities that exist in the tech sector.

Tech companies should reach out to schools and colleges and build relationships that can lead to entry-level roles. Dedicated school events and cross promotion on social media can help raise awareness of the wide spectrum of jobs that are available to women in the tech industry.