The number of women in technology roles increased by 1% last year, according to research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
The professional body’s Gender diversity in the tech sector report 2025 found there are currently 441,000 women in tech roles in the UK, making up 22% of the total IT workforce.
This represents slow growth, having increased by just 3% over the past five years. The BCS is concerned that this slow rate of progress will hinder the UK’s opportunity to fully utilise artificial intelligence (AI) in line with the UK government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Sue Black, founder of BCS Women, said: “For decades, women have driven some of the biggest technological breakthroughs in history. The data in this report show an incremental trend toward women seeing a tech career as a means to change the world.
“But we need to supercharge that growth, and fast. We can surface amazing role models, but we also need to reshape workplace culture so diverse voices are valued. When women thrive in tech, innovation thrives.”
The lack of women in the technology sector has been a long-term issue, and where women are coming into the sector, retaining them is another hurdle.
This is particularly concerning when the pace of AI growth is leaving many behind, and where the teams developing technology such as AI are not diverse, the probability of the technology being built with bias increases.
We need to reshape workplace culture so diverse voices are valued. When women thrive in tech, innovation thrives Sue Black, BCS Women
For the gender split in the technology sector to reflect the gender split of the wider working world, there would need to be 530,000 more women in tech roles.
There are many barriers in the way of achieving this number, with the recent Lovelace report claiming that between 40,000 and 60,000 women are leaving digital roles each year, whether for other tech roles or to leave tech for good, with a quarter stating the reason to be a lack of opportunity to advance their career in their current roles.
BCS’s research correlates with this, finding that women in the industry earn on average 12% less per hour than their male counterparts, and that women in tech are more likely to be unemployed than men in tech.
While women in tech face barriers to entry and progression, black women face their own unique challenges, making their progression in the sector even more difficult. The technology sector comprises only 0.6% of black women, a 0.1% drop since 2022.
The difference in the way men and women work is also highlighted in BCS’s research, with women in the tech sector more likely to work part-time than men. It found that 13% of women in the tech sector were working on a part-time basis, compared with 3% of men.
Compared with 2023, the number of women in tech working part-time has risen by 3%, whereas the percentage of men working part-time remained the same.
The ability to work flexibly is an important driver for women in the sector, especially as the burden of care within families often falls on women.
Despite its potential for flexible working, BCS found only 5% of women in tech were self-employed.
Gender split varies across the tech sector, depending on a variety of variables, including role. Women were found to be less likely to work as IT engineers, and more likely to work in roles such as IT project managers, web designers and IT operations. Women are also less likely to work in technology roles in industries such as manufacturing and construction.
Across the UK, there were fewer women in tech positions in Wales and the East Midlands, compared with other areas in the UK. Scotland, London and the North East were found to be home to more female tech talent.
Despite being less senior and lower paid than their male counterparts, women in tech were found to be more qualified, with 82% of women in tech holding some form of higher education level qualification, compared with 71% of their male counterparts. However, men in tech were more likely to have a technology-related degree than women.
Jo Stansfield, CEO of Inclusioneering and BCS Women vice-chair, said: “It is encouraging to see a long-term movement towards better representation of women in tech, but we need to see a step-change in the rate of progress if we are to make meaningful change within the lifetime of the current workforce.
“Women and underrepresented communities in tech continue to face barriers at every stage of their careers. Government and industry must prioritise solutions that foster a culture of inclusion – one that not only creates equitable opportunities for its workforce, but builds a trusted, competent and ethical profession that serves the needs of society.”
BCS Women, in partnership with Coding Black Females, made a number of recommendations for increasing the number of women in the technology sector, including starting at school level to encourage young women into science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects early, tackling the gender pay gap, making the recruitment and career progression playing field more level, introducing flexibility more widely across the sector, and focusing specifically on the barriers faced by black women trying to embark on tech careers.
