With Digital becoming an essential part of our daily lives, it’s hard to fathom that only a small fraction of women are employed in Tech and IT, with
less than 40% make up the total workforce worldwide. Women have overcome so many hurdles when it comes to workplace inequality, emerging into formerly male-dominated sectors and having greater control of their career trajectories.
Despite this, there’s still a multitude of boundaries women face in their professional pursuits – the gender pay gap (standing at
15.5% in 2020 within the UK) on top of sexual harassment and being
singled out for redundancy whilst pregnant to name a few. But with Tech and IT transcending the limits and creating a wealth of new opportunities, could there be ulterior reasons why women themselves have chosen to steer away from working in Digital? The answer? Sadly, yes.
Lacking representation in senior roles
A big factor at play would be the
lack of role-models in the industry. Statistics have shown that women in Tech are less likely to be
less promoted than men, with
77% of Tech director jobs taken by men and
78% of women in Digital feeling as though they’ve had to work a lot harder to prove their capabilities. With the Digital space predominately hiring men this directly impacts the number of women able to grow into leadership positions.
On a grander scale, women account
for less than 5% of all CEO’s and a whopping
78% of UK college and University students unable to name a single famous female working in Tech. These disheartening figures show a void of female talent for young women to aspire to in the industry as well as displaying the unequal gender balance has been a contributing factor for keeping the ‘glass ceiling’ intact.
What makes it all the more disappointing is that women have actually been proven to be great in leadership positions – enhancing innovation, being natural communicators and being
3% more effective than men in business.
Young women are researching companies carefully
More and more woman entering the workforce are using online insights, workplace reviews and professional networking websites to learn more about prospective companies. It’s easier than ever before to do company research. Overall,
8 out of 10 British female millennials intentionally seek out employers with a proven track record of inclusion, equality, and diversity.
Women can gain details on company culture and experiences of past and present employees – all allowing further opportunity to deliberate over whether they could see themselves fitting into a particular role. This automatically puts Tech companies at a disadvantage given the current landscape of the Digital sector.
The Tech industry has been dubbed as a hotspot for ‘bro culture’, another way in which women are alienated from entering Digital. Women want more assurances they are going to be comfortable where they work. With
72% of women in Tech having experienced working for a company where ‘bro culture’ is the norm, women are actively seeking companies with strong principles and ethics. A healthy work culture is such a fundamental contributor for a thriving, happy workspace. Reportedly, a
third of all British workers have left a job due to a poor workplace culture.
Less women studying Tech and IT in school or university
Few young women are endeavouring to take up STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and maths) in school. From an early age, young women and girls are subject to gender bias in terms of what jobs would be more fitting to them –
stereotypically that men are more capable with maths and that women were better equipped in the arts and communications. This kind of gender stereotyping can get stuck in young girls’ psyche, planting seeds of doubt and prevent them from undertaking subjects considered ‘more masculine’ by those perpetuating these falsehoods.
And with scarcely any high-profile women technologists being discussed in STEM alongside male prevalence, young women and girls have shied away from undertaking Tech based qualifications and degrees. In fact, only 27% of women from a
recent survey stated they wished to pursuit a career in Tech, a big jump from the men (68%) looking to enter the industry. Data from UCAS in 2019 shows that women in computer-science degrees (19% overall)
are still vastly overnumbered by men who make up for 81%.
Due to a larger quantity of men choosing IT and Tech based careers, this in turn causes
a lack of women in the talent pool for hiring managers and companies to select recruits from.
Are you a woman looking to break into Digital?
Here at The Training Room, we’re thrilled to be launching an invaluable foundation to break into Tech with opening of our new Microsoft Bootcamp courses. All of which are designed to provide you with relevant industry essentials, providing a specific route and specialisation into the Tech industry. Our Microsoft courses cover key elements on software and business insights that are highly desired by Tech and IT employers right now.
You don’t need an extensive CV, just a passion to excel in a brand-new field!
We have the following Bootcamp courses available: