Women make up just one in twenty applicants for IT jobs in the UK, according to half (52%) of all tech employers, new research from Technojobs has found.
The study further revealed that almost all tech employers (91%) are receiving less than a fifth of applications from women. This echoes recent industry figures, which in 2013 found that there were just 176,000 women employed as IT professionals in the UK, compared to 953,000 men – equating to 16% of the tech workforce.
When questioned about the main barriers behind IT as a career path for women, nearly two thirds of employers (62%) surveyed said there was an off-putting image of a male dominated environment. A further third of respondents (30%) cited a lack of encouragement and career advice at school as a critical obstacle, demonstrating the importance of educational support to help women into technology roles.
The proportion of women varies within each sector of IT. One of the areas women are least likely to go in to is IT Support: women currently make up just 10% of all IT Support staff. In IT Security, a high growth sector, women make up just 14% of the workforce across the country.
Anthony Sherick, Managing Director of Technojobs, said the results prove that female representation in IT is stagnating and more needs to be done to encourage women to apply for these jobs.
“Technology is one of the most rapidly developing industries globally, with an increasing number of specialised jobs becoming available, yet the lack of female representation is worrying. It’s not just the question of a skills shortage, but a lack of choosing IT as a profession in the first place, as women hesitate to take their place in what the results reveal to be a male-dominated domain. In order to rectify this problem, we need to change the image of tech by making it more accessible to women.
“The lack of women in technology also exacerbates the skills gap within the IT industry. Without a greater influx of talent in the industry, this serves to create a sector scarce of volume talent and experience that is currently in high demand. We have a responsibility to encourage women into STEM careers, starting with education, because otherwise British businesses risk missing out on a significant pool of talent.”