New survey reveals huge gender gap in British IT sector

Experts believe this gap is due to lower participation of girls in STEM subjects

Reflecting a gender diversity crisis in Britain's IT industry, a new research has found that just one in six IT jobs in the country are currently occupied by females.

The research, which was commissioned by human layer security firm Tessian and analysed from the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, revealed that only 17 per cent of IT Directors in the UK are females.

When examining IT technician jobs, women fill only 29 per cent of the posts. And more shockingly, just 7 per cent of IT engineers in the country are female.

As per the survey, females occupied just 103,360 out of total 608,000 IT jobs reviewed in the survey.

Gender inequality is an issue that has grappled tech industry for many decades. Many tech firms in the past have taken measures to adopt more inclusive working environments, but there still remains lot to be done on this subject.

According to experts, the main reason behind the low percentage of females in IT professionals is lower participation of girls in STEM subjects in schools.
Just 20 per cent of computer science graduates in Britain are women. In comparison, more than three of five graduates from non-science subjects in the country are female.

Last month, a report by Tessian outlined various reasons why few women in UK are currently considering a career in the technology sector. The report, which particularly focused on cyber security industry, found that lack of awareness, role models and clear development paths are the primary reasons for girl students to not explore roles in the industry. Media is also portraying an inaccurate picture of the technology sector, the research found.

In 2018, a survey by Tech City UK revealed that nearly half of young women believe that they do not have sufficient skills to succeed in STEM careers.
"These figures are solid proof that gender disparity is still a prevalent problem which affect the IT, computing and cyber security industries - from education all the way to industry practice," said Tim Sadler, CEO for Tessian.

Sadler says there is currently a need for technology sector and education institutions to work together to plug the gender gap in the industry.
Businesses must also take some pain to "educate female candidates, regardless of whether they are still in school, recently graduated, or even just looking to progress their careers" to the close the gender inequality gap in British tech industry, he suggests.

Computing's Women in Tech Excellence Awards are now open for entries, and are designed to celebrate and promote the many female success stories in the UK's IT industry. Its design, along with the Women in Tech Festival, is to showcase IT as a viable and fulfilling career for females at all levels.