Ten years on, why are there still so few women in tech?
2nd Jan 2020
With the amount of women employed in the digital workforce hovering around 17% for the past decade, more needs to be done to diversify the industry.
Britain’s technology industry is booming. Its tech firms attracted more than £6bn of venture capital funding in 2018, according to Tech Nation, more than any other European country. Around 80% of tech investment in the UK is in fast-growing businesses, creating new jobs, revolutionary products and innovative services. Yet, women are missing out on this entrepreneurial success, making up just 17% of of IT specialists in the UK. Worse still, a new survey shows that the number of women in the tech sector has barely moved over the past 10 years despite an industry-wide push. When tech has never had it so good, where are the women?
Much has been written about male domination of the tech world. Many tech companies are run by men, and female role models are few and far between. At its worst, the industry has cultivated a toxic “bro culture”, exemplified by Uber’s founder Travis Kalanick who was forced to step down as chief executive of the ride-sharing company, accused of creating a sexist work culture that discriminated against female employees.