Skills Survey 2003: Women in IT - are they getting a rough deal?

This year's silicon.com Skills Survey has thrown up a number of surprising results, including many that have merely confirmed our suspicions, but one area where it was difficult to make predictions was with the role of women in the IT workplace.

In total, 13 per cent of 3,830 respondents to this year's survey were women - down on last year's figure of 15.3 per cent. While some people still think of the female techie as a myth of Bigfoot proportions this result shows that women are established in the high-tech sector.

More specifically, of those female respondents 17.2 per cent currently work as an IT manager, 11.9 per cent work as an IT consultant and 4.5 per cent hold the post of IT director or CIO - proving that the once male-dominated world of high-tech is losing its single sex status, even among some of the most senior roles.

While it is clearly true that fewer women are working in IT, for reasons outside the remit of this survey, those who are in the workforce appear to be enjoying near parity with their male colleagues in terms of percentage representation in certain sectors.

The demographics of the IT manager and vendor categories reveal the closest comparative figures. While 17.2 per cent of women work as IT manager, the figure for men is 20 per cent. Of all our respondents, 3.3 per cent of women work for a vendor, while the figure for men is 3.8 per cent.

In fact one position where women appear to have the upper hand is that of ecommerce director/manager. With ecommerce still a relatively recent addition to many companies offerings it is likely such posts may be safeguarded from the cronyism and 'old boys' network that are inherent in appointing people to more traditional roles.

And indeed there is still some way to go before we talk about true equality across the board. Where the gulf starts to widen is with the more senior positions. While 4.5 per cent of female respondents are currently in board director positions, the figure for male respondents is eight per cent.

However, the gulf between men and women is perhaps greatest in terms of salary. The majority of female respondents - 68.5 per cent - are earning less than £40,000 per year, with almost a third - 32.3 per cent - earning less than £25,000.

For men, the money is far better. While the majority still earn less than £40,000 per year the actual figure, 54.8 per cent, is much lower and there are far fewer - 20 per cent - earning less than £25,000 per year.

At the higher end of the pay scale this means 32.5 per cent of women earn more than £40,000, compared to 45.2 per cent of men. And in the very upper echelon, 2.7 per cent of female respondents are earning more than £110,000 per year, compared to 3.5 per cent of males.

silicon.com will be following up this article, looking to uncover the reasons behind the results we have found. If you have an opinion on this subject, please email: editorial@silicon.com and let us know what you think.