Women accounted for 50% of the working age population in 2021 (those aged 16-64), 48% of those in work and 46% of the unemployed.
There were 423,900 female IT specialists in the UK in 2021 – 22% 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 486,000 IT specialists in the UK.
The level of female representation in IT varies by job type - from less than one in twenty IT engineers (4% of the total over the 2017-21 period), to around one in three IT operations technicians, user support technicians, and web designers / developers (30% or more in each case).
The unemployment rate for female IT specialists in 2021 was 1.8% - marginally less than that for males (1.9%) but less than half the rate for women as a whole within the UK labour market (4.4%).
The incidence of self-employment amongst female IT specialists (6%) was much the same as that recorded by men working in IT positions (7%).
By industry, gender representation for IT specialists was worst amongst IT businesses in 2021 where women accounted for just 18% of those in IT roles.
Female IT specialists were almost five times more likely to be working part-time than males (i.e. 14% versus 3%) during 2021 – most often as they did not want full-time work.
At £19 per hour, the median hourly earnings for female IT specialists in 2021 was 13% less than that recorded for males working in IT positions (as employees).
In 2021, female IT specialists (that were employees) appeared marginally less likely than males to be in ‘positions with responsibility’ (comparison figures of 36% and 39% respectively).
Around seven in ten IT specialists held some form of HE level qualification (70% of females and 72% of males).
Just 6% of female IT specialists held some form of IT degree compared with 13% of their male counterparts.
The most common means of IT specialists (male / female) securing a job during the 2017-21 period was by ‘replying to an advertisement’.
