Women accounted for 51% of the working age population (those aged 16-64) in 2023, 48% of those in work and 44% of the unemployed.
There were 420,000 female IT specialists in the UK in 2023 – 21% of all IT specialists in the UK at that time.
If gender representation in IT were equal to the workforce 'norm' there would have been an additional 550,000 IT specialists in the UK.
Less than 1% of IT specialists are Black females.
The level of female representation in IT varies by job type - from around one in twenty IT engineers (6% of the total over the 2019-23 period), to around one in three IT project/ programme managers and web designers/ developers (i.e. 30% in each case).
At 2.5% the associated unemployment rate for female IT specialists was notably higher that for males normally working in the IT field (1.8%) but still well below the overall unemployment rate for women in the UK (3.8%).
The incidence of self-employment amongst female IT specialists (5%) was slightly below than recorded by men working in IT positions (7%).
By industry, gender representation for IT specialists was worst amongst construction firms in 2023 where women accounted for just 10% of those in IT roles.
Female IT specialists were more than three times more likely to be working part-time than males during 2023 (i.e. 10% versus 3%) – most often as they did not want full-time work.
At £23 per hour, the median hourly earnings for female IT specialists in 2023 was 6% less than that recorded for males working in IT positions (for those working as employees).
In 2023, male/female IT specialists (that were employees) were equally likely to be in ‘positions with responsibility’ (40% in each case).
Three-quarters of IT specialists held some form of HE level qualification in 2023 - the proportion higher amongst women than men (80% of females and 73% of males).
Just 4% of female IT specialists held some form of IT degree compared with 11% of their male counterparts.
The most common means of IT specialists (male/female) securing a job during the 2019-23 period was by ‘replying to an advertisement’ (40% and 31% respectively).
