Women still outnumbered, underpaid in IT

Despite efforts to increase the number of women working in IT, the gender gap has only got wider in the industry.

Women hold a mere 19 per cent of IT jobs, according to research conducted by professional services company Parity Group.

That number is in line with silicon.com's own 2004 Skills Survey, which revealed that about 1 in 8 (or 12.5 per cent) of tech jobs are held by women.

Of the women who do chose to brave the male-dominated tech world - about 19 per cent of the total UK population - a majority (60 per cent) choose project management roles over more technical positions such as programming, design or development.

Along with being outnumbered, women earn significantly less than their male counterparts. Male project managers earn on average £71.90 per hour while females make £37.31, based on the 200 people surveyed by Parity.

Of those female project managers, most have job titles at the lower end of the hierarchy, meaning they're more involved with coordination and administration than with making technical and business decisions.

So what's going on?

The many recent initiatives to increase women's role in IT, such as school programmes that try to get girls involved in math and science and organisations that promote networking among women in tech, aren't working. Stewart Coia, director of HCM practices at Parity, says companies that want to attract and retain women in IT roles need to take a different approach.

Women, who often bear more family responsibilities than men, are thought to value flexibility in the workplace.

Coia says: "If companies can offer benefits like flexible hours and [the ability to work from] a variety of locations, it will entice women into IT." These are things that are often missing in the upper echelons of IT positions.

Tech companies that don't pursue female workers will arguably find themselves with increasingly unbalanced teams.

In the end, says Coia, IT is "wasting a tremendous resource. A large number of university graduates are women, but only a small percentage is going to the top in IT". That means they're going into other industries - and IT's could be missing out on a major portion of the educated population.