Women already have a huge impact on the workforce and create amazing new solutions in the IT industry. Thanks to high qualifications, their influence is still growing. There were times when some people were spreading stereotypes that the IT industry is meant for men. Fortunately, there are more and more changes visible in this matter, and women prove that gender has nothing to do with their expertise in a given field. What is the situation in the employment of women in the IT industry in the world and in Poland? What will it look like in the future and how to support women in IT?
Global Situation
Recent research from 2022 shows that women make up only 28% of the workforce in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields and only 15% of engineering positions are held by women (making it STEM field where women are most underrepresented). Moreover, women make up 34.4% of the workforce of the largest American tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
According to data collected by Adeva, women hold 25% of all the jobs in the tech industry. Despite the fact that there are a few well-recognised women in top positions, such as Sheryl Sandberg – Facebook COO or Susan Wojcicki – YouTube CEO, at the Executive level females make up 21% of the overall workforce. It is also visible that Top Tech companies struggle to balance the gender gap – there were just 7% female participants in Stack Overflow Developers survey, only 6% of user profiles on GitHub are women and only 18% of women employees in Google hold technical roles.
Has the situation changed throughout the years? The gender gap in technology and data science has grown significantly over the last three decades, raising global concern about the state of open-mindedness of the information and tech industry. Computing occupations held by women have been declining since 1991, and from then to 2018 it dropped by 11%.
Challenges for women in the IT industry
Moreover, the study from 2020, led by Accenture and Girls who Code, showed that 50% of women abandon technology careers by the age of 35 and that females leave tech roles at a 45% higher rate than men. Only 21% of women in the study said they believed the technology industry was a place they could thrive in.
What are the pros and cons of being a woman working in IT?
Based on the interviews with 500 participants worldwide, some of the primary reasons why women are underrepresented in technology are the lack of mentors (48%), the lack of female role models in the field (42%), gender bias in the workplace (39%), unequal growth opportunities compared to men (36%) and the unequal pay for the same skills (35%). These points clearly show the directions for making the improvement in the industry.
Situation in Poland
According to the No Fluff Jobs report “Kobiety w IT 2023”, every fifth female Polish IT specialist deals with programming (in various categories), 15% works in testing, and every tenth in project management.
The same report also shows that as many as 40% of IT specialists was promoted in 2022. Despite the fact that women in Poland in this industry earn 4.2% lless than men, the situation is still better, than in other European countries. What’s more, 66% of women employed in the technology industry do not know how much men in the same position and with the same experience earn. If you want to analyze earnings for individual technologies and positions, you can check them in our report on the IT job market in Poland, in 2023.
According to Polish women working in IT, the biggest professional challenges in 2022 were:
- taking care of well-being and coping with stress (43%),
- decrease in motivation (42%).
- and the changing economic situation in the world (26%).
Will women dominate the IT industry?
In the 17th episode of the Call for Tech series, we talked with Joanna Pruszyńska-Witkowska – Co-Founder & VP at Future Collars. The main topic of the conversation was the acquisition of competencies and the future of women in the IT industry. From the interview, you will learn about changes on the IT job market and Women’s Career Days in IT.
The future of women in the IT industry
Women are still underrepresented in the industry, and there is still a lot of inequality against them. Will that change in the future? Based on the current rate of progress some people estimate that it will take until 2133 to close the gender gap entirely. It is expected that 1.6 million young women would work in the tech industry in 2030.
ISE (ICT Solutions & Education) suggests some steps that can be taken to remedy this. You can read about them in the image below.
It’s promising that many companies notice the benefits of gender diversity in the workplace, and the tech industry is no different. From the employer’s perspective, some of the most visible advantages are a wider talent pool, multiplicity of perspectives, improved recruitment and reputation (research by PwC showed that 85% female millennials say it’s important to them to have an employer with a strong record on diversity) and greater profitability (according to McKinsey, the most gender-diverse companies are 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability).
Data scientist, Claudia Perlich, made a comment that the ratio of women to men shouldn’t be an issue in the tech industry. Instead, she says that women being recognized for the work they do without gender getting in the way is the challenge:
“I want to come to work and do what I love and be recognized for what I bring to the table and not waste even one thought on the fact that I am female.”
Women remain the minority in technology and data science, but it’s not a solution to forcefully convince them to enter the industry. Rather, it should be a movement to bring awareness to the current situation, highlight the growth opportunities available, and bring the benefits of gender diversity to light. Having the support and being recognized for what women bring to the technological table should continue to close the gender gap at a slow, but steady pace.
How to support each other in the IT industry?
Firstly, we encourage you to send your CV or apply for our job offers. As an IT recruitment agency in Poland, we would love to help you with your development in this industry and finding your dream job. The few digital communities and people listed below can be also a great source of information and inspiration.
Facebook groups for women in IT
#Mamo pracuj w IT – Polish community of working women who aim to transform the IT industry into a more inclusive workplace.
Women in Technology Poland – a community of women from the IT industry who share information, events, interesting articles and support each in professional development.
WIT Global – Women In Technology – “Women In Tech’s mission is to inspire talented women to consider a future in media and technology by providing the network and experience of successful women and men from the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds.”
Social movements and organisations for women in IT
SheCodes – an organization that provides coding workshops with the aim of bridging the gender gap in the tech programming industry.
Women in Technology – a non-profit community of universities, companies, nonprofits and government organizations working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology.
Girls Who Code – an organization that encourages girls all over the world that aims to close the gender gap in technology and to change the image of what a programmer looks like and does.
Women Who Tech – a nonprofit organization building a culture and inclusive economy to accelerate women tech entrepreneurs and close the funding gap.
Women Techmakers – Google’s program that provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology.
Geek Girls Carrots – a global grassroots organisation focused on attracting women to tech.
PYLADIES – an international mentorship. Its focus is to help more women become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community.
Inspiring females
Reshma Saujani – CEO of Girls Who Code, the nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology while teaching girls confidence and bravery through coding.
Pamela Maynard – CEO of Avanade, the leading digital innovator on the Microsoft ecosystem and global leader in technology business solutions.
Dr Sue Black OBE – Professor of Computer Science at Durham University.
Magda Zawora – Data Analyst and Data Specialist. Member of the Board at the Women in Technology Poland Association.
Jowita Michalska – Founder of Digital University – the open education program dedicated to business leaders, entrepreneurs, startups, university students and lecturers, and public administration managers.
Elizabeth Churchill – Director of the User Experience at Google. She is a psychologist specializing in human-computer interaction (HCI) and social computing.
Ela Madej – Entrepreneur and investor. Co-founder and Partner at Fifty Years – a fund for supporting entrepreneurs.
Barbara Sołtysińska – Co-founder of indaHash (international platform for native ad campaigns with influencers) and LifeTube (the biggest YouTube multichannel network in Central Europe).
Alina Magowska – Head of Research in Allegro, the leader who is managing Design/UX research teams.
The situation of women in IT in Poland
To sum up, it is is very important to support women in finding jobs in the technology industry. The data by the Polish Economic Institute have shown that Poland lacks as many as 147,000 IT specialists in comparison to the European Union average. Therefore, initiatives in the field of education or opening up more and more professional opportunities for women in the IT sector would mean that more companies will have great female IT specialists on board.
As an IT recruitment agency in Poland, we have had the opportunity to see many times how great technological knowledge and talents women have and we hope that the direction of change will be the most promising, with many successes in their careers. If you have any questions regarding recruitment in IT, please contact us. We will gladly help you.
