Post-Brexit Britain will need many more female techies, says Sir Vince Cable

More effort needed to recruit women into tech if the UK is not to fall further behind

Amid constant complaints from business about the shortage of IT skills, it is surprising that more attention is not given to the massive gender imbalance within the industry. A large number of talented and creative women who could potentially bridge the tech skills gap simply choose to take their talents elsewhere. This problem has been the subject of earnest debate for many years, but on the ground little has really changed.

The IT gender imbalance is far from being a peculiarly British problem, although the UK does rank poorly compared with other nations. It can be hard for women to break into what's still seen as a male preserve, there are few role models for young women who might aspire to the profession and the geeky stereotypes are doubtless off-putting to many that do.

Recent research by HackerRank based on test results from its developer skills and job placement website places the UK at 23rd out of 50 countries in terms of the proportion of developers who are female, way behind fast-growing economies such as top-ranking India and China, and also trailing the USA, Canada and former soviet-bloc countries Romania, Ukraine and Bulgaria. The UK performance is mediocre when it comes to the test scores too, sitting halfway down the table, while women from Belarus, China and Russia grab the accolades.

As with all such single-source, self-selecting studies caveats apply as to how representative these results are, but few people would be surprised at these findings. Tech roles are still, by and large, unattractive to women.

So what's to be done? There are lessons to be learned from the leaders, of course. In general, engineering disciplines like technology are seen as less intrinsically ‘male' in the culture and educational systems of India and China, and so women are more likely to feel comfortable pursuing a technical career.

At an event hosted by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, last week intended to demonstrate the importance of gender diversity in technology and highlight the upcoming Apprenticeship Levy, Sarah Burnett, chair of BCS Women, said that the process of cultural change is slow and redressing the imbalance requires more positive action.

"Whilst there is a rise of women in professional roles, we have yet to see a significant impact through the work done by the numerous organisations who are trying to make a difference," she said.

"It is clear that there are still cultural issues to be addressed if we are to attract and retain greater numbers of women in technology roles."

Apprenticeships are emerging as the government's chosen mechanism for bridging the tech skills gap, with efforts being made to attract women in particular. With the introduction of ‘degree apprenticeships' in 2015, young people can obtain a degree as part of an apprenticeship scheme without having to take on debt. In addition, April will see the arrival of the Apprenticeship Levy, a charge payable by all UK employers with annual salary bills of more than £3m that is projected to raise up to £3bn a year by 2019-20 to cover the cost of providing apprenticeships, including training and assessment.

Encouragingly, figures from QA Training show that some technology-based apprenticeships such as software development are already attracting more women than the industry standard, something the firm puts down to marketing campaigns on Facebook and elsewhere that focus on high salaries, financial independence and lifestyle benefits that technology roles can offer.

Speaking at the BCS event, Satveer Kaur-Singh, who undertook an apprenticeship with QA and now works at AXA Insurance as an analyst, said there should be more emphasis on the fact that tech roles are changing in a way that might make them more appealing to women.

"There has been a noticeable change in the focus of the needs of the customer and a more collaborative working environment," she said. "This has led to an increase in relationship building and interpersonal skills required rather than purely technical. Therefore these creative soft skills and also the variety of roles available within IT need to be clearly publicised so that we can change the perception of IT roles."

There's no time to lose if UK tech not to fall further behind, according to Sir Vince Cable, former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

"Post-Brexit Britain faces a chronic digital skill shortage." he said.

"I completely support those who are proactively promoting technology apprenticeships to diverse audiences. Gender diversity and inclusion should be high priority to the ongoing strategy to recruit apprentices to enable the UK to bridge the skills gap effectively."