Though accounting for 23% of the working age population in 2023, people with disabilities constituted only 17% of the total UK workforce.
There were 270,000 IT specialists in the UK with disabilities in 2023 – 14% of all IT specialists in the UK at that time.
If representation in IT were equal to the workforce 'norm' there would have been an additional 66,000 IT specialists in the UK with disabilities.
Representation of people with disabilities in the workforce varies across the UK from 8% of IT specialists in Northern Ireland to 19% in Wales.
Representation of people with disabilities also varies with IT role — from just 10% of programmers/ software developers to 23% of IT operations technicians.
Approximately 21% of all unemployed IT specialists in the UK had some form of disability during 2023 and the associated unemployment rate (3.0%) was notably higher than that recorded for IT specialists as a whole (1.9%).
Representation of IT specialists with disabilities was lowest in construction and other services businesses (10% in each case), and highest in transport/ communications companies (22%).
In 2023 the gross hourly pay for IT specialists with disabilities was £21phr - 89% of the remuneration for IT specialists without disabilities (£24phr).
In 2023 approximately 69% of IT specialists with disabilities held a degree/HE level qualification compared with 76% of those without disabilities and 45% of workers with disabilities as a whole.
Around one in ten (11%) IT specialists with disabilities held a degree in an IT-related discipline.
IT specialists with disabilities are more likely to receive job-related education/ training with 33% stating it had been received in the previous 13 weeks during 2023 (compared with 25% of those without disabilities).
IT specialists with/without disabilities were most likely to have secured work by replying to an advert (35% and 33% respectively).
