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Women in IT & Tech Industry: IWD2018

Gabrielle Cox • Mar 10, 2018

In light of last weeks International Women's Day, we look at women in the IT & Tech Industry.

Last Thursday, the 8th of March, we took the time honoured International Women's Day, a day dedicated to celebrating women and pushing for equality. The theme for 2018 was 'Push For Progress', encouraging everyone to strive for equality between genders.

The tech and IT sectors are notoriously male dominated, with only 17% of employees in the UK tech industry being women and only one in six school leavers starting a degree in computer science in 2016 being female.

Elizabeth Gooch, founder and CEO of e.g. solutions recently highlighted that one of the main barriers for women in tech is the stereotypes the industry comes with. She stated "We need to remove these stereotypes and encourage young girls to get involved in technical activities; not just hard sell them on the idea of careers in IT.”

There are, however, many initiatives out there aiming to increase the number of women working within the tech industry, including Trainline who has partnered with Code First:Girls to teach 20,000 women to code for free by 2020.

Striving for equality in the workplace is not about giving women more, at the expense of men. With equality in a working environment, men are given the opportunity to embrace benefits including more paternity leave, flexible working, and a more inclusive work culture.

A second issue within the IT & Tech industry is the pay gap , where according to research , women are paid on average 9% less than their male counterparts. An issue not just limited to the IT & Tech sector but industry wide and increasingly high on the news agenda.

Where advances are being made, across many industries, the above highlights the changes still left to be made.

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