IT professionals call for more women to enter industry

IT professionals say there are not enough women in IT

New research from IT job search site CWJobs.co.uk on the state of women in IT shows that almost half of IT professionals in the UK believe that there isn't a fair representation of women in the industry.

Some 45 per cent of the 5,556 IT professionals surveyed feel that women are unfairly represented in the industry, and 64 per cent feel a better gender balance would benefit the sector.

Belinda Parmar, founder of Lady Geek, a marketing firm focused on gender differences in the industry, said that from her own experience in IT, she agrees that there are too few women in IT, and claims that the problem is rooted in schools.

“What we’ve found is that internet usage among teenage girls is exactly the same as boys, but they are five times less likely to consider a career in IT,” she said.

“But when I was at school I associated that IT equals boring and nerdy and not for me, as many young girls do. I wanted to go for a career in media or marketing. So the first thing is that girls are perceiving a career in IT as a very male-dominated area. The second thing is that girls see IT as an uncreative profession.”

She added that the way ICT is taught in schools is at the heart of the problem, and young, ambitious girls are not interested in pursuing a subject where they are learning how to open a spreadsheet.