A recent analysis of the UK IT labour market by sector council e-Skills UK showed that the gender imbalance in the sector continues to worsen. Only one in five IT workers is female, with significantly fewer in managerial positions.

One frequent comment made by employers when quizzed about the steps they are taking to bring about gender diversity in the workplace is that women are not applying for available technology jobs. And a cause of the dearth of applicants is the under-representation of women in the relevant areas of education, including higher education.

Clearly, little can be done in the immediate term about the shortage of women taking IT-related degrees. But technology leaders should target women returning to industry after a career break. Experience shows that with the right mix of individual aptitudes, and provided the employing organisation has suitable career structures in place, women returnees can make the necessary transition and become successful technology workers.

IT directors should also consider less traditional recruitment routes, targeting female graduates in non-technology subject areas, such as law, biology or psychology, where they are represented in much higher numbers.

It is commonly perceived that women who have chosen to study such courses are not suited to highly technical roles. Yet examples abound of women with non-scientific backgrounds that have succeeded in IT.

Ann Budge, chief executive of services specialist Sopra Newell and Budge, whose original degree was in psychology, is one such example.

IT directors might also find illuminating the following comments from one young women working in technology.

Currently working as business development officer for the police service, she took a rather unconventional route to IT: “I chose to leave full-time education after obtaining my GCSEs, in favour of acquiring work experience and professional qualifications. I worked for several years as an IT contractor and then as IT project manager at the Houses of Parliament.”

Another woman ­ now working as a software engineer at IBM ­ discovered she had a talent for programming after completing a general humanities degree.

Such circuitous routes into technology are not unusual. According to UK Labour Force Survey data for 2005, only 10 per cent of women working in full-time IT jobs hold a technology-related degree.

At the same time, 2005 research from Cambridge University reported that almost 50,000 women had dropped out of the UK IT labour market between 1999 and 2003.
One conclusion could be that the IT sector cares little for the advancement of women in the industry.

However, Equalitec reports show such assumptions would be misguided ­and women without a technology-based degree should not stop thinking of entering IT.
With the digital revolution gathering pace, new areas of IT employment are emerging for which a technology degree is not an absolute pre-requisite and where technical expertise can be gained through other routes.

Until the age of 16, GCSE results show that girls and boys perform equally well in both mathematics and science subjects. Such achievements suggest that many more girls could be become interested in an IT career if they were appropriately motivated.

There is a role here for the government’s 10-year investment framework for science and innovation, which is designed to raise attainment and increase the number of young people continuing to study physical sciences and mathematics. Schemes such as Computer Clubs for Girls and STEMNET, which aim to encourage more young people to study computer science, are important too.

Still, there is much work to be done. Although a majority of UK households now have a computer and broadband connection at home, young female users have not acquired a greater interest in computing careers. The disparity is partly because the home computer is perceived as a consumer item and not as a potential tool for change. It is difficult to translate domestic point-and-click actions into work that has a real purpose, which is what many women say they want.

And yet IT-led transformations are creating irrevocable change across many sectors. When you can make a film and distribute it worldwide with your mobile phone, and when teams of researchers can use grid computing to advance medical knowledge, it is clear that the rules of the game have changed.

It is high time that the rules governing entry points and career progression pathways in IT were changed too, to provide more clarity and flexibility, and to ensure that the digital revolution does not run its course without women’s creative influence.

Elizabeth Pollitzer is director of Equalitec, which is currently partly funded through the European Social fund