Women outnumbered by 15 to one at top of IT firms

Women are outnumbered by 15 to one at the top of IT firms in the UK, according to statistics released for Ada Lovelace Day, which celebrates the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Emolument, a global crowdsourced salary-benchmarking tool, says its figures show women are outnumbered by three to one at entry level into IT firms and by eight to one at senior manager level. This gap almost doubles for those at Head of IT/Chief Technology Officer level.

In terms of pay, women’s pay gap starts at 10%, with women analysts earning £26K compared to £29K for male analysts, but grows to 23% at senior manager level, with women paid on average £64K compared to £83K for men. However, at Head of IT/CTO level where numbers of women are small, women outearn men by 3%. They are paid on average £131K compared to £127K for men.

Emolument also released statistics for developers which show a 10:1 ratio of men to women at HTML/Javascript Developer level – and a 3% pay gap – rising to 25:1 at the top band senior developer level – and a 20% pay gap.

Emolument says web development (HTML/Javascript) is more female-friendly than other programming languages, with a significantly smaller pay gap as well as slightly better gender ratios. However, salaries are also lower than for other languages.

Alice Leguay from Emolument said: “These figures really take the spotlight away from the financial services gender gap to focus not only on the pay gap in IT but also the dearth of women involved in the sector altogether. In order to tackle the issue at the root, girls should be encouraged to pursue IT-related subjects at school in order to break down a common perception that IT is a masculine prerogative. Hopefully, women’s involvement in web development is only the start of a more radical change in perception.”

The results are based on 1,352 IT professionals working in the UK.

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