The Tech Industry Celebrates Progress for Women, But Data Tells Another Story

Every year, March comes, and companies acknowledge International Women’s Day with pledges and campaigns. The workforce data is telling a more heartbreaking story, though.

In the States, women held about 26% of computing roles in 2012, according to the National Centre for Women and Information Technology. A decade later, that reached 27.6%. The narrower computing only share is near 25%. In 1984, women made up about 35% of the computing workforce, based on research compiled by AIPRM. Progress has not reversed that long term drop.

In the UK, women represent 25% of the STEM workforce in 2025, according to WomenTech.net. In engineering and technology jobs, the share goes down to 16.9%. At university level in 2022 to 2023, only 23% of computer science students and 21% of engineering and technology students were women or non-binary. WomenTech.net we’re looking at 30 to 70 years, at the rate its going right now, until gender parity could start happening.

After more than a decade of awareness days, corporate pledges and coding campaigns, women are still only getting about 1 in 4 tech roles.

Why Are Women Leaving Tech?

The issue here is not entry alone. It is retention.

A study by Girls Who Code and Accenture found women leave tech careers at a rate 45% higher than men. Nearly 57% of women in tech report gender based discrimination. About 48% say they have faced bias about their technical competence, compared to 10% of men. Almost half mentioned poor work life balance as a reason for leaving.

In the UK, between 40,000 and 60,000 women leave tech and digital roles each year, costing the economy £2 billion to £3.5 billion in lost productivity, according to WomenTech.net. Half of women in tech exit by age 35, mostly due to burnout and poor workplace culture. Only 3% say caregiving is the main reason. Instead, 25% leave due to lack of career growth, 17% due to lack of recognition and 15% due to inadequate pay.

Leadership shows exactly this as well. In the US, women hold 11% of tech executive roles, according to McKinsey’s 2024 analysis. In the UK, women hold 21% of senior tech leadership roles in 2025. For every 100 men promoted to manager in UK tech, only 52 women advance.

What About Pay And Funding?

Pay gaps reinforce the imbalance. In the UK, women in tech earn 16% less per hour than men, compared to an overall UK pay gap of 11.6%, according to WomenTech.net. In startups and scale ups, women earn 74p for every £1 earned by men. At 50 major UK tech firms with more than 100,000 employees, the pay gap is 17.5%. Women receive 12.9% less in bonuses on average.

Venture capital as well. Same thing: in the US, companies founded solely by women received 1% of total venture capital in 2024, down from 2% the year before, according to PitchBook. In the UK, all teams founded by women received 2% of total VC funding in 2024, down from 2.5% in 2023.

Capital and senior decision making roles are still largely dominated by men.

Is AI Creating A New Risk?

AI is also a place where it can be seen, when it comes to the divide. The Stanford AI Index 2024 reports women only have 22% of AI roles globally and 18% of AI researcher roles. In the UK, only 20% of AI and data professionals are women.

Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer at Coursera, said: “This International Women’s Day, let’s shine a light on the importance of expanding women’s access to emerging technology skills. Over seven million people have used GenAI for work, up 66% from two years ago. What’s worrying however is that fewer women are enrolling in GenAI courses than men.

“Our recent Gender Gap Report found that time constraints and confidence are the main factors behind women’s hesitation to pursue STEM and GenAI courses. In fact, women are six times more likely to enroll in beginner-level GenAI courses than intermediate ones, suggesting they prefer a more structured and accessible pathway when getting started.

“But as AI continues to become more central to job opportunities, there’s a real risk that women will be left behind if the skills gap isn’t narrowed. Only 36% of women believe GenAI can advance their careers, compared to 45% of men, and this disparity can discourage women from pursuing upskilling opportunities. That’s why initiatives such as mentorship programmes, gender-inclusive curricula, and flexible learning pathways are so important to help women balance professional development with their day-to-day responsibilities.”

In the UK, a 227% rise in GenAI courses has been reported, but only 31% of learners are women. Only 27% of UK women plan to build AI skills this year, compared to 38% of men.

What Are Days Like International Women’s Day For?

Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, has been candid about early assumptions. She wrote: “When I started Girls Who Code to close the gender gap in tech, I was naive. I thought what we were facing was only a pipeline problem, and we would close the gap if we just taught more girls how to code.”

In an interview with EDUCAUSE Review, she said: “We’ve seen progress on entry-level hiring, but we haven’t made a dent at the leadership level. The question on my mind is: How do we avoid the pitfalls of fields like medicine and law that closed the entry-level gap but haven’t seen movement at the top?”

If the numbers barely change year after year, awareness days will just start to feel symbolic and not practical. Their value depends on whether companies change pay structures, promotion systems and accountability for losing women mid career.

Otherwise, the headline stays the same. About one in four…