Research and Surveys

Some of the biggest challenges for returners and re-entrants that compound low confidence are not being taken seriously because of CV gaps, negative perceptions about commitment and willingness to learn and be flexible, and ageism.
As the war for talent hots up, some employers have recognised an untapped pool waiting to be accessed. The BCS and Intellect are working with organisations and agencies to encourage the IT sector to wake up to the potential of both male and female returners and re-entrants.
This booklet, aimed at HR directors and their teams, has been produced as a partner to their Taking a Break guide for IT professionals. Containing examples and tips on innovative policies and programmes, we hope that it will help boost the opportunities for more IT professionals to manage their careers effectively in dialogue with employers.

Building a profession that is good for women and better for all. The British Computer Society is working together with sector leaders and IT professionals to attract, retain and advance more women into leadership in the IT industry.
Many people consider taking career breaks these days - but, as they excitedly plan that world tour or prepare for parenthood, few look beyond the break itself to the important issue of getting back into work.
If you hope to return to work you need to plan for your break carefully and then make sure you take all opportunities to improve your prospects of going back to the right job at the right level.
This BCS guide aims to show how, with proper planning and the right approach during a break, leaving work for months or even years need not mean the end of your hard-won career or professional ambitions.

The statistics for getting British women into science and technology are not great, but a growing awareness of the issues, and a host of innovative solutions to tackle them, is beginning to make a real difference.

Women scientists from 60 countries descended on Seoul, South Korea earlier this month. An international conference of women physicists and a forum of the UKKoreanWomen in Science project gave us the opportunity to compare our position with women scientists overseas. Our statistics may not be the best; the UK, along with the other English-speaking countries sits close to the global average for the percentage of women working in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). In contrast to a country like South Korea, where the government is handsomely funding projects to increase the number of women in science, our growth rate is slow. However, in terms of programmes and initiatives to attract, retain and advance women in STEM subjects, we have thought hard about the issues, and taken action.

This briefing paper addresses key issues relating to the gender imbalance in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) occupations.

There is a growing demand for people with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills in today’s economy. It is widely acknowledged that to remain globally competitive the UK needs a Science and Engineering skilled workforce. Moreover, this need must be set in the context of an overall decline in the proportion of students studying Engineering and Technology and a generally poor perception of Engineering and Technology careers. There is also a challenge in that many STEM graduates move into unrelated occupations, where their analytical skills are sought after. This briefing paper looks at the potential pool of female employees as a key answer to the skills challenges that the UK faces. Women are one of the country’s most under-utilised resources and this is particularly prevalent in the Physical Sciences and Engineering where only a minority choose a career in these sectors.

The high-technology field has long been pegged as one that is inhospitable to women because it has been - and continues to be - dominated numerically by men. Common wisdom and previous research suggested that the barriers to advancement that women in technology companies faced and the experiences that they had as a result of the male dominance and pervasively masculine culture of the field led to dissatisfaction among women employees.

Moreover, among women in technical jobs, dissatisfaction and disenchantment were found to be especially acute. In recent years, however, the climate for women in technology companies has begun to change. With a very robust market for jobs in information technology, companies have had to respond to employees’ demands for better working environments. Indeed, companies have found themselves in competition to attract and retain highly qualified talent - including women and men.

Good for business: Increasing women’s participation in the labour market and reducing gender segregation in the workplace is estimated to be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion to the UK economy. There are a number of studies that show a link between gender distribution in a company’s management and its profitability. Research from Catalyst in the USA shows companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams delivered 35.1% higher return on equity, and 34% higher total return to shareholders than companies with the lowest representation.

We are facing serious skill shortages in fast growth technology sectors, in particular in the ICT industry. There are frequent calls by top industrialists for more efforts to attract more young people into the sector, but in fact very little has been done to interest one half of the this population: young women. This is a mistake and this report shows how big a mistake we are making.

At the age of 15 both girls and boys have about the same preferences and ability in science and technology, but as they progress to become adults girls drop out of engineering and technology in favour of other
subjects. By the time they get to university and on to grad school, female computer scientists are out-numbered six to one by men and the situation is even worse in
engineering. This is in spite of women outnumbering men in third level education overall. This imbalance persists on into industry: women R&D personnel in tech sectors account for below 20% of researchers and later on women earn less and find themselves in management roles less often: only 30% of European Mangers are women.

This Note presents the results of a short survey of the views of women BCS members about IT in the investment banking sector. The survey was prepared with the assistance of the BCSWomen group of the British Computer Society (BCS). Also summarised is the response of London-based HR managers who are responsible for IT people in London-based investment banks.

The most interesting finding is that many women in IT do not consider applying to investment banks NOT because they think they are macho and possibly sexist (though they do!) but because they think such banks only recruit from other investment banks. Some banks are thus losing valuable applications because of a misconception about the sector, and some women in IT are losing out on interesting well-paid careers...

"Women Matter" is a study conducted by McKinsey & Company as part of its global partnership with the Women's Forum for the Economy & Society.

The study suggested that the companies where women are most strongly represented at board or top-management level are also the companies that perform best. Confirming the existence of the gender gap - most notably in the composition of corporate management bodies - the McKinsey study offers fact-based insights into the importance for companies of fostering the development of women in the business arena, so that a greater number attain positions of high responsibility. Finally, building on these insights and observations, and highlighting the main barriers to female representation on management bodies, this study seeks to bring the practical debate of how to make the transition from awareness of the situation to the implementation of change.

The current state of gender in society can best be described as conflicting. On the one hand gender seems to have changed a lot but on the other hand it seems to have changed little. One area where changes in gender relations are visible is women’s increased presence in
information communication technology (ICT) work. However, women still constitute a minority in this sector. In this article, a discourse analysis is used to illustrate the resources to which ICT workers have access when explaining the scarcity of women in ICT work. The different discursive strategies discussed include attributing the scarcity of women in ICT work to factors over which the company has no control such as socialisation, biology and women’s disinterest in technology. It is argued that the use of ‘I don’t know’ segments reflects the confusing nature gender takes today. The article thus contributes towards an understanding of the discursive resources on which people draw to talk about gender and how fluid, shifting and partly conflicting these resources are.

Fewer than one in five Information Technology, Electronics and Computing (ITEC) professionals and managers are women and female representation in ITEC is decreasing. Yet, there is a strong business case for increasing the proportion of women employed in this sector. By not making use of all available human capital resources, employers are narrowing the pool of talent they can choose from. Underutilising a valuable section of the labour market is ineffective, especially when jobs are hard to fill or during times of skills shortages. The implications of this are wider if women are working in lower skilled roles and in occupations that do not fully use their actual or potential skills. The effect is that the economy is operating below its productive potential, thus slowing its rate of growth. Furthermore, it is easier to understand and meet customer and client expectations if the people creating the products and services are as diverse as the people who buy or use the products and services. And, of course, most managers are now committed, from an ethical standpoint, to ensuring that women and men have the same opportunities to develop their careers.

Women working in the technology industry could be facing a glass ceiling; some certainly think so. Almost 39% of our respondents had more than 10 years’ industry experience, yet only 16% had achieved senior management level. Employers may wish to compare the survey’s results with their own workforce figures for men.

Maternity is a key concern. Many women who report few or no barriers to their advancement caveat their perception by saying “…but I haven’t had children yet.” The vast majority of our sample had not taken and did not intend a career break, despite the survey’s demographic skew in favour of women with more than five years’ experience in the industry.

Most think that technology careers are no more detrimental to family life than other careers in other industries. Indeed, many women cite examples of employers offering flexible and part-time work for returners. Some also pointed to remote working, clean and safe environments as making the technology industry ideal for returners. However, it’s clear that women think maternity will damage their careers - though the technology industry is no worse than other fields of work. Women who return to the same employer after maternity leave say they have a better chance of obtaining flexible hours and other benefits, while those who search for part-time or flexible jobs say they are thin on the ground.

This directory gives details of sponsorships, awards, competitions, courses, visits, company family friendly policies and other initiatives designed to encourage girls and women to consider careers in science, engineering, technology (SET) and construction.

WISE aims to attract more girls into SET and construction, to support other organisations that enable girls and women to advance their careers and to ensure that they are retained in the SET and construction sector.

This is the final report of the study launched by the European Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate G, Components and Systems on Best practices for Even Gender Distribution in the 25 MS in the domain of Information society Technologies.

The objective of this study on best practices of even gender distribution in Europe 25 is to foster the participation of women in the ICT domain and to provide relevant input for further European policy developments and their implementation in the area. This has been done by identifying, selecting and analysing different best practices cases in major public and private European ICT organisations.

Existing statistics demonstrate the low participation of women in the ICT sector, and particularly in decision making roles. It is precisely for this reason that the study gives a overview of some of the best European strategies and measures in the area of gender equality in ICT with the expectation that they will be transferred and applied to other organisations and companies with the same constructive and positive commitment.

This report forms part of a larger research project seeking to investigate female representation within the ITEC (IT and Electronics) labour market and has been drawn up on behalf of Intellect and the Department for Trade and Industry with the aim of:

• Giving a better understanding of the UK’s ITEC labour market and in particular, trends in female participation within ITEC occupations.
• Establishing whether the currently low levels of female participation within ITEC jobs is a phenomenon local to the UK or a more global issue faced by other countries within/outside the EU.
• Potentially highlighting countries with higher levels of female participation in the ITEC workforce that may then feature as case studies within a subsequent research exercise tasked to identify “effective policies for increasing women’s participation in the IT sector”.

This is the report of a project entitled “Widening of Employment Opportunities in ITEC: Professional Advancement through ITEC Skills”. The purpose of the project has been to identify employment areas outside the traditional IT sector where demand for IT skills is increasing, and to highlight the possibilities for new types of careers for women, including those returning to the labour market following a career break. The project examined case studies of newly-emerging occupations with the aim of investigating whether there is in these occupations a positive employment culture with career development opportunities for women. It is hoped that the results of this work will be used to encourage women to consider careers in different scientific and technical professions from those which they might normally be aware of.

The number of women in the IT industry is declining steadily. This statement is supported by official ONS Labour Force Survey figures, which show a decline, from 27% in 1997 to 21% in 2004. DTI and Intellect’s Women in IT Forum commissioned Exemplas Ltd to undertake primary and secondary research to help develop the business case for diversity and identify best practice strategies for retaining women in IT professions.

This research was broken down into two phases: Phase 1 focused on the business case for diversity and resulted in a report entitled ‘Women in the IT Industry: Towards a Business Case for Diversity’. Phase 2 was to concentrate specifically on why women are leaving the IT Industry and what they believe should be done to encourage women to stay.

This research focused particularly on women aged over 45 and women in more senior roles as both of these groups are currently under researched. The objective of this research project was to make direct contact with representatives of these two groups of women and to seek to establish the specific reasons why they have left or are contemplating leaving the industry and to ask what might have changed their minds and persuaded them to stay.

One of DTI’s strategic priorities is to maximise potential in the workplace, helping to create organisations with high productivity, value and skills. DTI want to raise skill levels to produce high value jobs in high performance workplaces, where people can realise their full potential whilst maintaining a healthy work-life balance. As part of this drive, DTI will encourage business to make better use of innovative working practices, modern management techniques and good leadership, working in partnership with employees and their representatives. DTI will also promote diversity, fair treatment and work-life balance as routes to raising levels of participation and improving employee motivation and creativity, so raising productivity.

This report has been supported by DTI and is part of its ongoing strategy to address the issues mentioned above. DTI are continuing to work with employers, as well as employees, to understand diversity issues as well as identifying the reasons for the severe under representation of women in the IT sector.

As the number of women in IT and IT related jobs remains disappointingly low, both in recruitment and retention, we need to understand why that is, and once understood look for ways to address the issues.

Are you a woman returning from a career break and looking to change paths into a more ITEC based job or to return to work in the ITEC sector itself? Do you think you have the balance of skills that ITEC jobs need? If so, you will find yourself in high demand. Apart from the really technical roles, working in the ITEC sector is to a certain degree all about people. As a woman returner or career changer with past working/studying experience you will more than likely have a wide range of ‘people skills’ which employers are looking for.

Employers are particularly interested in people with problem solving skills, who are strong communicators and have the ability to work in teams. In addition to possessing technical skills an ‘ideal candidate’ will possess good communication and team working skills as well as being able to be flexible and adaptive to change. Research shows that women consistently score higher in these abilities than men. If you are looking for a career that provides opportunities for career and self development coupled with financial reward then why not consider ITEC as your next move?

One of DTI’s strategic priorities is to maximise potential in the workplace, helping to create organisations with high productivity, value and skills. We want to raise skill levels to produce high value jobs in high performance workplaces, where people can realise their full potential whilst maintaining a healthy work-life balance. As part of this drive, we will encourage business to make better use of innovative working practices, modern management techniques and good leadership, working in partnership with employees and their representatives. We will also promote diversity, fair treatment and work-life balance as routes to raising levels of participation and improving employee motivation and creativity, so raising productivity.

DTI has supported the preparation of his report with these goals in mind. In particular, working in partnership with employers and employees, we want to understand and address the severe under-representation of women in the IT sector. Work-life balance and flexible working benefit men and women but the more widespread adoption by businesses of flexible working practices could particularly support women to enter and remain in IT.

We hope the dissemination of the results of this survey of IT workers stimulates greater debate about the drivers and inhibitors to flexible working in the sector and ultimately to more businesses introducing effective working practices into their organisations.