News in Brief

Women in IT Scorecard maps gender imbalance in IT workforce

New research published this week by BCS, e-skills UK and Intellect, shows that the gap between males and females remains a live issue for those working in the UK IT professional workforce. Currently, females account for just one in five IT professionals, with many rejecting IT qualifications at Secondary and Higher Education level.

The aim of the 'Women in IT Scorecard', therefore, was to identify drivers of this gender imbalance and to provide an evidence base for data and commentary, from females taking IT related qualifications, to being employed as part of the IT professional workforce.

Key findings of the scorecard include:

• Females represent 45% of the UK working population but just 19% of the IT professional workforce.
• There is a significant pay gap between male and female IT professionals - ranging from 14% for young professionals (aged 16-29) to 30% for women aged 40-49.
• The number of females in the UK’s ICT industry is only two thirds that of Italy and Ireland.
• Although females taking IT related qualifications in Secondary Education are low in number, they consistently outperform their male counterparts. It can be presumed, therefore, that if females were more inclined to participate in IT careers then the pool of talent available to IT employers might improve noticeably.

Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, Stephen Carter, said: "We are delighted to offer our support to BCS, e-skills UK and Intellect in producing this scorecard. The recent interim Digital Britain report underlined the importance of the IT sector for business development and success in the 21st Century, but we will only fully benefit from becoming a digital nation when everyone has access to the right education, skills and media literacy programmes.

He added: "22 million UK employees use IT every day and we need a skilled and diverse IT workforce to support them. There's more to be done to strengthen the ways business, education and government work together to nurture the IT leaders that business needs, and we will be working with the Sector Skills Councils to develop some action points for the final Digital Britain report."

Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK, said: "The gender imbalance in IT is a deep and persistent issue that cannot be put right by one organisation alone. We must work together; employers, government and education all have an important role to play.

"We know that the collaborative approach works. We have seen from our own programmes how committed partnerships can bear fruit. Two thirds of the girls on our employer-backed computer clubs programme, CC4G, report being more positive about a career in technology as a result; half of those registered on our new IT careers website, BigAmbition, are female; and around a third of students on our employer-designed IT and business degree course, ITMB, are female - compared to 15% for traditional computing degrees.  

"To make the impact the UK needs we need to multiply and scale such activities."

Read the full report at www.e-skills.com/scorecard

Posted on 23 Mar 2009