Nature of employment

Occupation

Representation of people with disabilities varies with the type of IT role - from just 6% of IT directors in 2021 to 17% of IT operations support technicians.

Representation by IT occupation (2021)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS
* Five-year average

Permanency of employment

As with other workers, IT specialists with disabilities appear more likely to be working in non-permanent employment than those without, and in 2021 around 11,000 (6%) were found to be working on a temporary as opposed to permanent basis (with a comparison figure of 4% for IT specialists without disabilities).

By comparison, the incidence of non-permanent employment was found to be marginally higher within the wider workforce - both with respect to those with or without disabilities (i.e. 7% of those with disabilities and 6% of those without).

When asked about the reasons for being in non-permanent employment, 14% of IT specialists with disabilities (over the 2017-21 period) stated that this was because they did not want a permanent job – a much lower proportion than amongst those without disabilities (23%).

Disability and unemployment

There were estimated to have been around 6,000 unemployed IT specialists in the UK with disabilities in 2021 – 19% of all unemployed IT specialists in the UK at that time.

At 2.6%, the corresponding unemployment rate^[1] for IT specialists with disabilities was higher than the rate associated with IT specialists as a whole (1.8%) though well below that for individuals with disabilities as a whole within the labour market (7.8%).

^[1]See data notes.