Encouraging women into the Scottish tech sector | FutureScot

Despite the growing demand for talent in Scotland’s technology sector, women remain significantly underrepresented, making up only 23 per cent of the digital workforce.

Clearly, there is a lot of work to do to achieve gender equality within the tech industry in Scotland, and that starts with breaking down barriers to encourage more women into the sector. Whether it’s finding and creating opportunities, building supportive and flexible working environments, empowerment, or closing the gender pay gap, businesses need to evaluate their role in encouraging women into tech. 

All of this must be underpinned by accountability. Businesses and leaders can’t just speak about diversity as lip service, there needs to be clear, tangible action. Pathways Forward recently set out its pledges and actionable steps for supporting women in business. For FDM, we have pledged to increase our career options for returners by providing upskilling and coaching within our Data and Analytics practice. 

Without accountability, we won’t move the needle.

Creating and Identifying Opportunities for Women in Tech 

When thinking about the tech industry, people may point to web developers, software engineers or even IT support roles. When thinking about attracting talent, people may look at graduate programmes or careers fairs. If businesses take this approach, then they are limited by linear thinking.

One of the first barriers is a lack of awareness of the opportunities, both by businesses and by potential candidates.

The tech landscape is changing all the time and subsequently creating new opportunities which women can take. Take AI, for example, training large language models requires a focus on data quality when providing inputs, as well as data analytics for the outputs to ensure that AI systems are delivering accurate and trustworthy outcomes. Not only does that require data staff to oversee, but also new responsibilities or even new roles dedicated to data ethics.

Women in Tech recently listed data roles as one of the top remote jobs for women in tech in 2024, highlighting data as a rapidly growing field with high demand and excellent salary prospects, offering opportunities for women to work on innovative projects and impact various industries. 

Showcasing the types of roles available, as well as adapting to technology trends, will create more awareness, and easier pathways for women to enter the Scottish tech industry.

But we also need to challenge linear thinking in talent attraction. 

We live in an era where people typically have multiple jobs or even multiple careers. It’s not just school leavers that can bridge the gap, businesses also need to focus on the pool of women looking to change careers or return to the workplace after a career break.

There doesn’t need to be a “right” time to enter the tech sector, and with the constant shift of technology roles businesses can offer upskilling and reskilling to equip staff with the necessary skills.

Challenging the idea of linear career paths and tech roles will start to open doors and create new opportunities for women in the tech sector. 

Breaking bias with support and flexibility

One entry-level barrier that has contributed to the gender gap is language, and that isn’t just confined to the technology industry.

Research from Openreach revealed that hidden bias in job adverts deterred 50 per cent of female applicants for engineering roles. When advertising roles or training schemes, considering gendered phraseology, active vs passive construction, and improving key skillset descriptors, can have a subtle impact on the wording of a job specification, but a huge impact on application rates.

Language also extends to internal communications between staff and other areas of the workplace.

Creating a supportive and flexible workplace environment is important for all staff, and that should be underpinned by diversity and inclusion policies that clearly define commitment to gender diversity and a specific roadmap to achieve it.

Pay isn’t everything, but it’s a good starting point and a clear measure of a truly diverse organisation. Last year, ONS highlighted that the median gender pay gap across the UK was 7.7 percent. While it had decreased compared to the previous year, we need to see this continuing to close, and each individual business has its role to play.

When it comes to inclusive policies, there’s maternity and paternity leave, mental health resources and anti-discrimination policies to name a few. Businesses need to spend time, and invest resources into building them out, and crucially measuring them to ensure they are truly diverse. That needs to come from the board and senior leadership team, creating a top-down culture across the workplace. 

Offering inclusive policies will encourage more women into the Scottish tech sector. 

Paving the way for women in tech

Closing the gender gap in the tech industry isn’t an overnight task, but by putting tangible actions into place and being accountable, businesses across Scotland can make significant progress.

There’s a clear appetite for technology skills, especially with the rapidly evolving digital landscape, and women are well placed to fill these roles whether it’s school leavers, those changing careers or women returning to the workplace. 

Not only will this pave the way for women in the tech sector, but it will also boost innovation and progress across the industry through significant leaps in diversity of skills and thought.