Blog
Women In Tech
A gender diverse workforce is an asset in all industries and organisations, globally.
But the tech industry has always been unbalanced when it comes to gender diversity, which is why there has been a big drive to promote STEM careers for women and girls. The United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 70/212 on 22 December 2015 creating International Day of Women and Girls in Science (celebrated globally every 11th February) to promote full and equal access and participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
Nine years on, how are we doing? Back in 2015 only 17% of tech jobs were filled by women so we are improving, but despite progress, there is still a considerable gender gap in the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) workforce with women making up between 29% and 45%. On average only 31% of the GAFAM employees are female.
Women in Tech Statistics Highlights
- At 32%, the share of women working in tech is now lower than it was in 1984, when it was 35%.
- In 2023, women constituted only 14% of tech leaders, highlighting the persistent gap in gender representation at the highest levels within the tech industry.
- 50% of women in tech roles leave them by the age of 35. In 2023, one in three women in the UK were planning to leave their tech job, pointing towards ongoing challenges in retention and the importance of work-life balance as a factor influencing women’s decisions to stay in or leave the tech industry.
- 32% of women in technical and engineering roles are often the only woman in the room at work.
- In 2022, all-women start-up teams received an all-time low of 1.9% or $4.5 billion out of $238.3 billion, in venture capital funding. In 2023, companies with at least one female founder secured $44.4 billion in US venture capital out of the total $170.59 billion allocated last year, spotlighting the investment potential and challenges of female-led start-ups in garnering financial backing.
- In Q1 2023, women in East Asia constituted nearly 30% of developers, marking a significant rise from 15% in Q1 2021 and illustrating the growing participation of women in the tech sector within this region.
The above doesn't even touch on the gender pay divide!
These statistics can be improved....But how?
EDUCATION
"When girls are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous."
MICHELLE OBAMA
The UN and governments worldwide are promoting STEM careers for women, improving access to education and opening up the STEM subjects is key. But it takes times for these plans to bear fruit and slowly there is more of a female uptake for the STEM subjects, but this isn't just about education... having a supportive industry is vital to retaining women in the tech industry.
With several decades of not enough women encouraged to choose technology-related careers. One of the main factors for the smaller number of women in technology is due to the lack of role-models for women within the sector and which is mainly down to the gender stereotype of 'boys being better at science and maths'.
The last statistic above however shows that in East Asia women developers have doubled to 30% in 2 years and in 2023, Mongolia had the highest share of women employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including the highest ratio of female engineers, with 57% of all those employed in STEM fields being women (15 Feb 2024) so on a global scale, times are changing.
WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY
"We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details."
JEFF BEZOS
It is no surprise that that 50% of women leave tech roles by the age of 35... when it comes to maternity pay and flexible working around young families, the UK are slowly coming round with more support (slightly higher maternity pay) but in the USA, it's another story....with little to no maternity pay and going to back to work from 2 weeks after giving birth acceptable.... it's a long road ahead, but tech companies are starting to offer more female friendly perks, including enhanced maternity (and paternity) pay, work from home/flexible working options, medical and fertility benefits, free food etc.
This is heading in the right direction, but more can still be done... we do not believe this is a tech industry specific issue btw, but more a global workforce issue, especially when it come to shared parental leave, affordable childcare options and a supportive manager.
CAREER PROGRESSION
"Don't be timid or Squamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Women in tech often face gender stereotypes and biases that can make it difficult for them to advance in their careers. These stereotypes can lead to many challenges for women, including: Most people consider women to be less technically proficient than men and more suited to non-technical or soft roles. Again a lack of role-models also plays a big part in this.
Do women have an advantage in tech? No matter how you look at it, a more gender-diverse workforce is better for business, especially in Tech. Women are more than capable and qualified to excel in Tech-based fields, like engineering, coding, cybersecurity, and more.
Tech giants such as Microsoft and Google consistently report that women make up roughly 30% of their workforce, with fewer still in positions of leadership or technical roles. The same disappointing numbers are also true of start-ups. According to a 2022 Deloitte study, the ratio is still 3:1 in tech (16 Feb 2024).
What about women in tech in the UK? A recent Tech Nation report that looked into diversity in UK tech companies revealed that 77% of tech director roles are filled by men. Stats from Tech Nation also suggest that only 26% of the tech workforce are women.
In the US, each year, companies of 250 or more employees must publish a report detailing their gender pay gap. The latest reports show that in tech, 91.1% of companies pay their male employees more than their female staff. This puts the tech industry's gender pay gap at 16%, higher than the national average of 11.6%.
These figures will improve naturally as more women are employed in tech and advance their careers, however, sustaining women in their tech careers is key; and eliminating the gender pay gap!
Companies need to look at not only their diversity hiring figures but also how long they keep their female employees and how well they are compensated for their services. Transparency is key!
WHO WANTS TO BE THE ONLY FEMALE ON THE TEAM?
“I didn’t learn to be quiet when I had an opinion. The reason they knew who I was is because I told them.”
URSULA BURN
The biggest challenge faced by women in tech today is around inclusivity. We're slowly increasing the tech industry workforce diversity, bringing more women into what has historically been a male industry, but we're still not seeing this diversity represented in the most senior of roles, especially when you may only have have one female on an engineering team of 10, that means statistically it is unlikely they will be promoted to team lead/manger.
So, what percentage of software engineers are female? Only 22%! A 2022 global survey of software engineers found that men made up 91.88% of the field — only 5.17% of those polled identified as women. And in the United States, only 22% of software engineers are women. These numbers are even lower among Black women and Hispanic/Latinx women (7 Feb 2023).
Creating diverse technical teams should be the goal of ALL tech companies as it's be proven that a diverse workforce is more creative and has a higher output. Without gender diversity, everyone losses.
TECH START UP FUNDING
“If you haven’t failed yet, you haven’t tried anything.”
RESHMA SAUJANI
When it comes to entrepreneurship, Women started 49% of new businesses in the US in 2021, up from 28% in 2019, according to a new study. Women entrepreneurship is also growing around the world, but obstacles remain and men still outnumber women 3-1 when it comes to business ownership, say experts (20 Jul 2022).
But tech funding is another story....in 2022, all-women start-up teams received an all-time low of 1.9% or $4.5 billion out of $238.3 billion, in venture capital funding.
This was the lowest percentage of venture capital allocated to such teams since 2016, when they picked up 1.6% of all venture funds.
In 2023 female-founded companies in the U.S. raised $44.4 billion out of the $170.59 billion in venture capital allocated. This is a dip from the $7.3 billion (2.1%) raised in 2021’s bull market.
However, for mixed-gender founding teams, they raised 26.1% of all venture capital allocated this year (2023), a sizable jump from the 18.2% they picked up last year (2022). This follows the pattern that women founders still fare better with a male co-founder in the mix.
These statistics are not overly inspiring, but again, a lack of role-models also plays a big part in this, a low STEM career uptake for women means there are less women still in the industry 40 years later.... less senior roles filled by women and less opportunities to inspire a younger generation to create/build or join a cutting edge, dynamic tech workforce.
While women in tech statistics show globally that more women are stepping into tech based roles and leadership, progress is slow. Women, especially those of colour, face extra tasks, biases, and unequal pay. Despite these challenges, there are signs of improvement and growth, showing the need for continued diversity and inclusion efforts.
The inclusion of women in tech is vital for nurturing diversity, spurring creativity, and steering innovation within the industry. Diverse groups have been shown to outperform, innovate more effectively, and better address the demands of a varied customer base. Women’s unique perspectives and experiences are instrumental in developing more efficient and inclusive technological solutions.
We will leave you with the wise words of Ellen Pao, former Reddit CEO & current Project Include CEO:
“We need to understand that if we all work on inclusion together, it’s going to be faster, broader, better, and more thorough than anything we can do on our own.”