You would think that after the research on pay gaps, and the Exemplar Employer report, we would have moved beyond discussing whether women get a fair job and would be able to move on to what people actually plan to do about it.
BCS, eSkills UK, and Intellect have created the ‘Women in IT Scorecard to provide “a definitive evidence basis for data and commentary, starting from females taking IT-related qualifications to being employed as part the IT professional workforce.”
Although the report contains a lot of statistics about what subjects girls study at school, it does not provide any analysis. It’s a scorecard. However, the report was not intended to provide an analysis. You will then see statements such as:
The proportion of women who are IT professionals today is directly affected by the inability of females to obtain IT-related qualifications.
Really? The study does not provide a cause-and-effect analysis, so this is purely anecdotal. IT professionals are people who work in IT occupations, according to the report. This broad definition means that there are many women who work in IT departments and aren’t programmers. I know of several women who are IT managers, project managers, customer service representatives, business analysts, ITIL, ITIL, and IT sales. You don’t need a Computer Science Degree to do these jobs. In fact, it may make you less capable. It will be more difficult to communicate with other areas of your business if you spend three years immersed in geek jargon.
The report states that there are many female IT workers, but that they do low-paid admin jobs.
If you look at the IT occupations more closely, it is obvious that females are more prevalent in the lower-skilled, less well-paid occupations. Only 19% of ICT Managers are female, and 14% of IT Strategy & Planning Professionals are females. However, nearly three-quarters of all Database Assistants / Clerks are made up of women. This occupation is the only one in which females outnumber men and is the least well-paid at PS375 per semaine, well below the national average (PS425).
They mean that there aren’t enough women working in IT for certain jobs, the ones that are highly skilled and get paid a lot (but not as much) as men in the same roles.
Interesting is the link between education attainment and advancement into the workforce. The GCSE results for girls who study ICT are better than those for boys. Despite the fact that there are fewer girls pursuing A levels, their results are still superior to those of the boys.
It is the same story at A-Level, with females continuing to outperform their male counterparts, albeit in a smaller number. 18% of females take Computing A-Levels, compared with 16% of males. 13% of females take an ICT A-Level, compared to 8% for males.
What happens when young women leave school to join the workforce? Does it mean that they don’t get into IT? Karen Price, CEO at e-skills UK believes it’s due to’misperceptions.
“In these times of economic downturn, the country relies more than ever upon the ability of the technology workforce in order to drive innovation. This is a serious concern. Many women are discouraged from considering IT careers because of misperceptions. We need to do more to promote the many roles and skills that we have as an industry. Particularly, women are attracted to roles that require a combination of business, interpersonal, and technical skills. This skill set is in high demand in the UK.
What are the wrong perceptions that young women have about IT? That would be a fascinating study. But it’s not enough: What are schools and employers going to do? If you want to see more women in IT,
