STEM Day: Closing the gender gap in STEM industries

The IT industry must do more to attract and retain female talent

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) industries have long underpinned innovation and growth in the UK, and there have been a huge number of successes to celebrate in 2022 across the STEM sectors.

However, with STEM Day taking place annually on 8th November, it not only serves as an opportunity to look at the triumphs, but also to reflect on what can be done to take STEM from strength to strength. Unfortunately, women still only make up a mere 24% of the STEM workforce. So, what can be done to encourage and retain more women in STEM fields?

Female experts from leading tech companies share their thoughts:

A proactive approach is essential for change

It's important that businesses and institutions are making the effort to improve gender diversity in their own workforces. Liz Parnell, COO EMEA at Rackspace Technology says: "There is no excuse in 2022 not to have balanced, diversified, and inclusive teams. Teach unconscious bias as part of your company onboarding; and walk the talk every day with your policies, behaviours, and level of transparency."

Laura Malins, VP Product at Matillion, remarks on a reason why gender diversity in the STEM workforce is low: "Evidence suggests that men are likely to apply for a role even if they meet just 60% of the criteria, whereas women tend to only apply for jobs if they are a perfect fit. This tells me that the potential of women in STEM is still yet to be fully realised and many fruitful opportunities remain untapped by deserving female candidates."

"Businesses need to make a conscious effort to recruit employees from a diverse range of backgrounds," says Clare Loveridge, VP and General Manager EMEA at Arctic Wolf. "This will allow businesses to attract more talent and develop more creative ways of thinking, contributing to the development of highly innovative solutions to the complex challenges facing leaders today."

Businesses need to think carefully about their diversity and inclusion strategies to make change, argues Pam Maynard, CEO at Avanade: "Fundamentally, there is an issue with the way some organisations approach DE&I, only paying it lip service to keep employees happy and avoid difficult conversations. It's time for change, and diversity needs to be tackled head on and from the very top."

Siobhan Ryan, Sales Director Ireland and Scotland at UiPath, remarks on how businesses can help their female workforce: "Businesses need to ensure women are inspired and able to contribute, participate and enjoy their roles. Mentoring programmes, community networks, and supported learning opportunities can help women to grow and succeed."

Katherine Church, Tech+ Director at Grayce, gives an insight into health tech, advocating for increased funding for women-led tech: "Despite the sector having strong female leaders in the NHS, with the national CIO and CTO being women, we continue to overlook providing the right funding and support for women pursuing STEM careers in health at every level. We need to increase the levels of VC and PE funding for Femtech and female founders so that women's health issues and careers are properly addressed."

Shortfalls in education are holding up progress

"STEM Day comes as a needed reminder that we must continue to encourage girls and women to study STEM subjects and provide opportunities that will help them to develop skills in the space." says EJ Cay, VP UKI at Genesys.

Accessibility to education is key, notes Jamie Lyon, Vice President of Strategy and Development at Lucid Software: "It's important for STEM-related educational and career development opportunities to be more accessible to women. These build a foundation of interest and technical skill sets for women wanting to enter the tech industry."

Women need to be able to access the same educational opportunities as their male peers to succeed. "Recent research shows that men are over a third more likely to receive digital upskilling than their female counterparts," says Mairead O'Connor, Exec for Cloud Engineering at AND Digital. "This needs to change."

For Poornima Ramaswamy, Chief Transformation Officer at Qlik, this education should include data and digital skills: "We must ensure girls are taught relevant data and digital skills at an early age to prepare them for the increasingly data-centric world we now live in. Our research also found business leaders and employees alike predict that data literacy will be the most in-demand skill by 2030."

Estella Reed, Head of People at Distributed, argues that the sector should be encouraging those non-STEM backgrounds into tech, too: "To increase diversity in the tech workforce, alongside meeting the increasing demand for talent, businesses cannot afford to limit their talent pool to only applicants that have studied a STEM degree. Many of the best software engineers working in the industry, for example, come from arts and humanities backgrounds."

Having faith in your own abilities

"We need to encourage women to believe in themselves and be confident in following their chosen path - whether it is the sciences, tech, humanities, sport, or the arts," says Liz Parnell of Rackspace. "My advice to women: get in there! See yourself succeeding and don't fear the unknown. Back yourself and use your talents to make a positive difference. Be unapologetic about your accomplishments and expertise."

Najla Aissaoui, Talent Acquisition & HR manager at Venari Security, agrees: "For girls and women looking at a career in STEM, never underestimate your power and skills. Don't be afraid to try and fail, just make sure to learn from your failures."

"Women need to have the confidence to join STEM careers. Part of this confidence comes from understanding that working in STEM isn't just something women should do because diversity targets need to be hit," says Sue-Ellen Wright, Managing Director of Aerospace Defence and Security at Sopra Steria. "They need to understand these opportunities can provide them with incredibly fulfilling careers, offering them variety, challenges, a sense of purpose, and tangible outcomes."

Caroline Vignollet, SVP Research & Development at OneSpan, encourages women to embrace their identity as a woman in the workplace: "While I always present myself as a professional in the workplace, and not a woman, I do believe bringing a feminine approach to a solution, strategy, team building and thinking helps bring a different perspective to the given environment. We need to celebrate differences and ensure we are all learning from each other to further innovation and progress."

Pantea Razzaghi, Head of Design at Automata, encourages women not to bow down to pressure: "For women in STEM, it can feel like there's added pressure to succeed and even outperform, as the industry is still very much male-dominated. However, often we are our biggest critics. My advice for young women early into their science and engineering journey will be to not dwell on mistakes for too long. Mistakes are a critical part of scientific discovery - that's how innovation works."

"My sincere advice; don't listen too much to what others have to say about you or your ability to thrive in this sector," says Renske Galema, Area VP, North EMEA at CyberArk. "Follow your own mind and find the fun in continuous learning."

Computing is committed to recognising and celebrating the work of women in IT. That's why we kicked off our fourth Women in Tech Festival last week, and continue the event this week with the virtual day on the 9th November. We're also getting ready for the Women in Tech Awards later this month, on the 22nd November.