IT Industry Under Pressure To Tackle Gender Imbalance

New research released on the occasion of the 99th annual International Women’s Day suggests there is still much that can be done to address gender imbalance in the technology skills market.

Both the general UK IT skills body, e-skills UK, and information portal, womenintechnology.co.uk, have today drawn attention to the ongoing inequality between pay and skills opportunities in the IT industry.

A closing of the gender pay gap, more respect and more support topped the wish list of women in IT, according to a poll released today by womenintechnology.co.uk to mark five years since the career portal was created, coinciding with the international day to promote women.

When asked what their ‘birthday wish’ for women in IT would be, the female technologists from womenintechnology’s network gave a range of answers, but equal treatment and equal pay were the top requests, as well as more support from both employers and fellow employees.

One respondent said: “[I wish] that people would assume [women in IT] have interesting, innovative and strategic thinking, without them having to work so hard to constantly establish credibility.” Another said she wished that women would “support each other rather than compete”.

The needs of working mums were also addressed with calls for women to be openly recognised as doing a great job, even if in part-time work, as well as for more workplace benefits options surrounding things like childcare. Other wishes were for more role models for women in IT, more women in senior IT positions and for women to trust their own skills and abilities more.

“As one respondent pointed out, it has been 40 years since the Equal Pay Act and, although we’ve made progress, we still haven’t closed the gender pay gap, so that’s definitely a big hope for the future” said Maggie Berry, managing director of womenintechnology.co.uk. “These results show that we still have a way to go until women are on a par with men in the IT world but what’s great is that these ‘wishes’ are realistic ones that are within our reach.”

At the same time, today’s publication of the e-skills Manifesto takes the gender imbalance into account alongside its emphasis on breaking down the digital divide and enabling an inclusive information society as part of the need to drive sustainable economic recovery and accelerate employment growth.

The e-skills UK manifesto said the changing shape of the UK economy means that future growth will be increasingly dependent on the technology sector and its ability to create jobs. However, it found that misconceptions about IT careers were limiting the recruitment pool and “there is a particular issue with gender imbalance,” it observed, adding “only 17% of technology professionals are female”.

Karen Price, chief executive of e-skills UK said: “In the current economic environment, IT skills have never been more important, from the professional skills of those in or aspiring to IT careers, through to the IT literacy skills every individual needs to participate in the information society.”

The manifesto was welcomed by David Clarke, chief executive of the Chartered Institute for IT , the British Computing Society (BCS): “Through our work with government, academics, IT professionals and the general public, we are aiming to achieve [equality] by developing a high performing IT education system, IT literate policies and a well respected and supported IT profession,” he said.