Women hitting glass ceiling in West Mids IT sector

RESEARCH conducted by recruitment firm Harvey Nash has revealed a substantial gender gap between men and women in management-level IT jobs across the West Midlands.

The Birmingham office of Harvey Nash, which conducted a regional survey as part of the company’s annual CIO survey of the IT sector, discovered that just 7% of individuals in high-level IT roles are female.

But there are jobs for women further down the chain. Nearly half of respondents said that up to 25 per cent of their IT team are female.

David Procter, an IT leadership consultant based at Harvey Nash in Birmingham, said:  “One of the most interesting things about this survey is that there’s a much larger number of women working in IT departments or teams than at a more strategic management level.

“With most companies talking up the value which diversity brings, we’re keen to explore why the discrepancy widens at that level. Some 68% of West Midlands respondents think the role of a chief information officer or IT director is becoming much more strategic to their organisation, so the survey reflects a clear opportunity for successful women in technology to play a more significant part in a key area of the region’s growing economy.”
 
The reasons recipients gave for this vast gender gap include a lack of female role models in middle management and the widely-held perception that subjects like software engineering are not seen as an attractive career path to female graduates.
 
However, the greatest reason respondents gave for the gender gap was a shortage of talent, with 75 per cent of female CIOs and 88 per cent of males believing that there is a serious lack of qualified women available for technology roles.