Where Are All The Women? Past…present and future

Since the 1980s the it sector has suffered from a lack of women entering the profession and a dearth of women in high places. Right from school, it, is often still seen as a boy’s domain. Maggie berry looks at some positive strategies for change

An Intellect research report “Women in ITEC, International Comparative Research Phase One” – showed that women currently only make up 16% of the IT, electronics and communications workforce in the UK. As women constitute 46% of the UK’s working population, the figures point to a clear under-representation of women in the technology profession. The report also clearly indicates that this is a long-term phenomenon within the UK and that the percentage of women in ITEC jobs has changed little over the past five years; statistics ranged from 15% to 19% between 2001 and 2005.

As the trade association for the UK hi-tech industry, Intellect is looking to create a strategy to ensure that more women will want to work and remain within the industry. Currently many of the women in the IT profession work in the lower skilled and lower paid areas of the industry and it’s a frequently discussed issue that women do not break through the glass ceiling to reach senior positions.

However the discussion about the lack of women in the industry is not a new one. Professors Gillian Lovegrove and Wendy Hall published a paper in 1987 entitled “Where Are the Girls Now” which examined the reasons behind school aged girls not choosing to study computer science at university in the 1980s. These reasons included the facts that girls were not motivated to take computer science classes (making it less likely that they would embark on a career in computing), that gender stereotyping existed outside of school (especially in the family home) and that girls were less likely to experiment with a computer – as opposed to boys who were less afraid of the consequences of their incorrect actions.

The Lovegrove/Hall paper recommended that careers advisors in schools should be made more aware of the opportunities for girls in computing and the IT industry. They also reported that many school aged girls, their parents and careers advisors shared a commonly held opinion that computer science degrees were simply about programming and were for boys. Indeed, technology is still thought of as a male subject area. The lack of female role models within the industry means little has been achieved with regards to helping change girls’ attitudes about the nature of a career in IT.

The Butcher Report for the DTI in 1985 highlighted the fact that IT companies could not afford to ignore the intellectual resources offered by women. In 2005, when Patricia Hewitt was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women, she said “It is a high priority to get more women to take up IT careers. When technology firms are forced to recruit from half of the available talent pool, it is not surprising that there are skill shortages and jobs not being filled.” The same remains true today. So lets hope that over the next twenty years progress will be made in the perception of IT as an engaging career option for women and that females will be playing a more active and equal part in the IT profession in the 2020s. *

Maggie Berry is the Director of womenintechnology.co.uk, an online job board and networking group for women working in the IT profession in the UK.

womenintechnology.co.uk helps firms to raise their profile amongst female technologists in the UK – highlighting why they are an ideal place for a woman to have a successful technology career. In turn the job board enables female IT jobseekers to apply directly to organisations which are actively seeking more female staff.

The website was launched in March 2005 and over the past three years they have built up an active network of over 3,000 technology professionals (backed up by a larger network of over 9,000 female technologists) who are committed to promoting women in the IT sector.
Please go to www.womenintechnology.co.uk/events for more information or contact Maggie Berry on mberry@women.co.uk or 020 7422 9214

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