Northern women taking digital sector by storm

There has been a huge 165 per cent rise in women moving into the digital sector over the past six months, according to research from PeoplePerHour.

However, there are still significant regional differences in the recruitment of women; the highest increase, of 1,000 over the past six months, was in the North of England, leading to a 2,995 per cent increase in earnings.

The south of the country saw a comparatively modest 72 per cent increase, according to freelance job board PeoplePerHour.com.

Almost half (48 per cent) of the jobs were in design and programming, and a further 10 per cent were in database development. Nine per cent of the roles were in web graphics and Flash programming.

According to PeoplePerHour.com, women working in the digital sector also provide the highest quality work, with the site giving an average score for female digital workers of five out of five.

"These latest figures provide evidence that women have broken through the digital jobs glass ceiling and are now competing with men on both numbers of workers and quality of work," said Xenios Thrasyvoulou, the web site's CEO and founder.

"The IT sector had been seen as male dominated, but these figures show that women are easily a match for men in the sector. It also shows that attitudes have changed too. Employers are now more likely to employ a digital worker based on the quality of their work rather than their sex."