Skills

7.1 Qualifications held

Female IT specialists appear to be more highly qualified than males and in 2025 almost eight in ten (78%) women working in these roles were holding a degree or other HE level qualification compared with around seven in ten men (72%).

This matches the situation within the workforce as a whole where 57% of women and just 49% of men were found to have qualifications at this level.

LEVEL OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AMONGST IT SPECIALISTS (2025)

Source: ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey, analysis commissioned 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 7% of female IT specialists stating that they held a qualification of this nature in 2025 compared with 12% for males working in IT roles.

IT SPECIALISTS HOLDING COMPUTING DEGREES (2025)

Source: ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey, analysis commissioned by BCS

7.2 Skills match

Irrespective of the level or nature of qualifications held, the vast majority of both female and male IT specialists (and other workers) viewed the skills they held as being sufficient for them to undertake existing and potentially more demanding duties in 2025.

Female IT specialists did appear however, to be slightly less sure of their capability to undertake more demanding duties using their existing skillset than their male counterparts (44% stating this to be the case vs 47% of males).

Only a small proportion of female and male IT specialists (3 to 4%) stated that they lacked the skills required in their job.

PERCEIVED SUITABILITY OF SKILLS HELD AMONGST IT SPECIALISTS (2025)

Source: ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey, analysis commissioned by BCS

7.3 Skills development

Female IT specialists were slightly more likely to receive job-related education/ training than their male counterparts during 2025 (28% vs 26% stating that they had received education/training during the previous 13 weeks when surveyed). This was also true amongst workers as a whole (comparative figures of 29% and 24%).

JOB-RELATED EDUCATION/TRAINING IN THE PAST 13 WEEKS (2025)

Source: ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey, analysis commissioned by BCS

7.4 Skills sourcing

As with other UK employees, the most common identifiable means of IT specialists6 securing a job (where stated) during the 2021-25 period was by ‘replying to an advertisement’ (34% 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 (42% and 32% respectively stating this to have been the case).

The next most common means of IT specialists securing a job was through a direct application (18%) followed by private employment agencies and people already working at the prospective employer (15% in each case). For each of these last two methods over the 2021-25 period the likelihood of female IT specialists obtaining work this way was much lower than for males.

MEANS OF FINDING WORK AMONGST IT SPECIALISTS (2021-2025)

Source: ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey, analysis commissioned by BCS