Skills

Qualifications held

Female and male IT specialists appear to be qualified to a similar level, and in 2021 more than seven in ten held a degree or other HE level qualification (i.e. 72% of women and 71% of men working in such roles).

This contrasts with the situation within the workforce as a whole where 53% of women and just 47% of men were found to have qualifications at this level.

Level of educational attainment amongst IT specialists (2021)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Though more likely to have a degree level qualification, female IT specialists are much less likely than males to have a degree in an IT related discipline – just 6% of female IT specialists stating that they held a qualification of this nature in 2021 compared with 13% for males working in IT roles.

IT specialists holding computing degrees (2021)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Skills development

In general, female IT specialists were just as likely to receive job-related education/ training as males during 2021 (26% in each case stating that they had received education / training during the previous 13 weeks when surveyed).

By comparison, amongst all workers women tended to have been more likely to have received education / training though - 29% stating that they had received education / training during the previous 13 weeks compared with 23% of men).

Job-related education / training in the past 13 weeks (2021)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Skills sourcing

As with other UK employees, the most common identifiable means of IT specialists^[4] securing a job (where stated) during the 2017-21 period was by ‘replying to an advertisement’ (31% of those that had been with their employer for less than one year stating they had secured work in this manner), and this was true for both female and male IT specialists - this said, the proportion of female IT specialists finding work in this way was much greater than for males (35% and 29% respectively stating this to have been the case).

The next most common means of IT specialists securing a job was via private employment agencies though, as illustrated overleaf, the likelihood that female IT specialists obtaining work this way was notably lower than for males (i.e. 11% versus 18%).

Means of finding work amongst IT specialists (2017-2021)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

^[4] Employees / people on government schemes who have been with their current employer for less than one year/12 months prior to being interviewed for the LFS.