It’s the first time in five years that such a fall in female employees in this sector has been seen – moving from 22.7% in 2021 to 20.1% in 2022. Prior to this, between 2018 and 2021, the industry saw a positive increase in female employees so it’s something of a surprise that there has been a such a reverse in numbers.
With 384,025 female tech workers in 2021 and 359,154 in 2022, which represents a 6.5% decline in a year, this is at odds with the number of male tech employee figures which continued to rise – being at 1,306,833 in 2021 to 1,419,590 in 2022 – an increase of 8.6%.
There was an overall trend during the pandemic that saw a disproportionate number of female tech workers placed on furlough and the fall in female representation mirrors this. In fact the gender pay gap for IT professionals widened from 10.9% to 12.9%, with females on average being paid 12.9% less than their male co-workers.
“The UK tech sector has made great strides in boosting female representation in recent years so it is disappointing to see much of that progress undone during the recent round of tech layoffs” said Christian Hickmott, Managing Director at Integro. He continued “Many of the tech roles created during the pandemic were remote, which favoured women juggling career and caring responsibilities. These remote roles have been among the first to go as the economy slowed and the pushback against remote working gathered pace.”
The peak in the number of IT professional working as contractors was three years ago, in 2020, and stood at 149,268. Unfortunately, that is now at the lowest level it has been in over five years. The 16% decline coincides with the introduction of the off payroll working rules in the private sector.
Between 2020 and 2022 the number of female IT contractors fell from 17,376 to 15,221 – a 12.4% decline. Christian Hickmott notes “The extension of the off payroll working rules to the private sector has clearly pushed many businesses to move large numbers of contractors onto the payroll… Contractors are generally the first into and first out of a downturn, which means we’re likely to see a recovery in contractor numbers as the fall in demand for tech skills bottoms out and organisations become more confident about how they implement the IR35 rules.”
