Women in IT: Still a mountain to climb

This year’s IWD theme is #BreakTheBias and it’s clear that despite some notable female business leaders in Britain, including outstanding tech entrepreneurs such as Martha Lane-Fox and Sherry Coutu, there are still many barriers to women’s progress to the top of the business world.

As an avid climber, I recently watched ‘14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible’, a powerful film about a mountaineer’s quest to climb all of the world's 8,000-metre peaks in seven months. I reflected (only partially in jest) that the chances of achieving this near-impossible feat sometimes seem as good as women succeeding in business.

Despite government-backed quotas, figures published recently showed that the proportion of women on FTSE 100 Executive Committee’s fell slightly over the past year to 25.9%. Alison Rose’s seminal review into female entrepreneurs published in 2019 showed that only one in three entrepreneurs are women, a gender gap equivalent to over one million fewer female entrepreneurs in the UK.

Amidst the overall picture, there are glimmers of hope. The Rose Review showed that over 140,000 all-female founded companies were created last year, meaning that over 20% of new firms are now led by women - a record high.

Less than 1% of investment capital invested in women

Businesses run by women are, on average, half the size of male-led firms. Closing the gap could reap the dividend of an additional £250 billion in GVA to the UK economy. Female entrepreneurs struggle to access capital.

A British Business Bank report published in 2017 revealed that for every £1 of venture capital (VC) investment in the UK, teams founded by women get less than 1p. By comparison, mixed-gendered teams receive 10p and teams founded by men receive 89p.

Strengthening the digital skills of women can act as a catalyst for progress. In the modern labour market, such skills are a vital requirement of many jobs. As many as 90% of jobs today require a certain level of digital literacy. But, women tend to be underrepresented in digital-critical sectors. Research published on last year’s IWD highlighted that only 4% of founders of the fastest-growing tech start-ups in the UK are women, and only about 10% of the UK’s technology leaders are female.

There is also a gender divide when it comes to digital skills. In research carried out by Lloyd’s Bank in 2018, women make up 61% of those with no basic digital skills whatsoever. One of the factors hampering the progress of women in tech and business generally is the competitive disadvantage they face on digital skills.

So, what’s the answer?

Whilst identifying and articulating the challenge is important, we also need to shift the conversation towards creative solutions. There is no silver bullet but a number of steps that need to be taken to improve the situation for women in tech.

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Enhancing digital skills will help feed the pipeline of female entrepreneurs and women working for companies in the tech and other sectors.

Encouraging more women to study STEM subjects will strengthen the pipeline of female tech entrepreneurs and business leaders. For instance, when looking at the data for computer sciences degrees, it’s staggering that only 19% are female, compared with 81% who are male, so there is a lot of room for improvement.

We also need to supercharge the number of women taking digital apprenticeships. Whilst the overall number of new apprenticeships is roughly equal, the pattern is skewed for women towards sectors which are traditionally female such as beauty and healthcare.

The number of women doing apprenticeships in STEM areas is increasing slowly but is still far lower than that for men. Figures produced five years ago by the pressure group Wise showed that more than 9 out of 10 STEM apprentices are men.

With such a gender imbalance, there is already good work taking place and more to be done. Employers should invest in technology skills for their female apprentices.

Our business, Decoded, works with companies across the UK, setting up Data Academies and training in digital skills. It would also help if VC firms signed up to the Investing in Women Code, which seeks to improve female entrepreneurs’ access to tools, resources and finance.

The UK: A hotbed of innovation in IT

The tech sector in Britain is growing fast with some extremely dynamic businesses. To give just one example, tech IPOs raised a record £6.6 billion in 2021, double 2020’s figures. But we are not doing as well as we can to help women flourish in the sector. As a relatively young sector, with the flexibility it brings, tech should be at the vanguard of change rather than lagging behind it.

All the women who are starting out on their business careers are starting out on their mountains to climb. They need to be given all the support required access the most highly valued jobs and sectors. Let’s hope that when we celebrate next year’s IWD we have some progress to report.