New standards to address IT gender imbalance

Women currently account for just one in five IT professionals

Three of the UK's IT skills and career bodies have teamed up to fight the gender imbalance in the IT workforce.

The British Computing Society (BCS), e-skills UK and Intellect have been collecting information since late last year on the proportion of females employed in today's IT profession. The organisations now hope to present the statistics as a "definitive evidence base for commentary".

Intellect said that the information is also aimed at setting a standard to make sense of the large amount of conflicting industry facts and data.

In association with the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, the groups have produced a Women in IT Scorecard, which sets out the key findings. These include women accounting for just 19 per cent of the IT workforce, even though they represent 45 per cent of the UK working population overall.

A significant pay gap also exists between male and female IT professionals, ranging from 14 per cent for women under the age of 29, to 30 per cent for those aged between 40 and 49.

Karen Price, e-skills UK chief executive, believes that the problem is down to various misconceptions that deter women from considering IT careers.

"As an industry, we need to do much more to promote the wide range of roles and skills we need," she said. "In particular, the types of roles that require a blend of business, interpersonal and technical skills are often appealing to women, and this is a skill set in great demand in the UK."

The BCS, along with representatives from e-skills UK and Intellect, will hold a 'Women in IT Away Day' meeting on 26 and 27 March to discuss actions that can be taken to address the gender gap.

The group is inviting industry professionals to respond to the discussion on Twitter by following W-Tech and Intellect Twitter.