Sarah Churchman, chief inclusion, community and wellbeing officer at PwC: ‘Young girls at school thought tech was a nerdy area to work in.’
Photograph: Rick Pushinsky/Guardian
Technology is among Britain’s most male-dominated sectors. Less than one in five tech workers are female, compared with 49% across the whole UK economy, according to Tech Nation. The ratio gets even worse in senior roles, where just 5% of leadership positions go to women, according to research by professional services network PwC (pdf).
There is better news in other areas of diversity, with the industry attracting a mix of recruits from different social backgrounds and improving the representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups. There have been moves to train people with learning difficulties to work in tech jobs. But there is still work to do to reassure young LGBT people that they won’t face discrimination in science and tech careers. And the industry needs to close its gaping gender gap.
PwC is spearheading a campaign to improve diversity in tech. Research from the company has found that many girls are put off studying tech at a young age; just 3% of females say a career in technology is their first choice, and 78% of students cannot name a famous female working in tech.
The study shows that some 83% of boys study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at school, compared with 64% of girls. Half of males at university study STEM subjects, compared with 30% of females.
“The research was a wake-up call for us,” says Sarah Churchman, chief inclusion, community and wellbeing officer at PwC. “Young girls at school were less interested in a career in tech and thought tech was a nerdy area to work in. They didn’t make the link that technology is transforming all aspects of our lives.” In future, most jobs will be tech based, she says, so getting a good grounding in STEM is essential to kickstart any career.
The research also found that 83% of female millennials actively seek out employers with a strong record on diversity, equality and inclusion.
To encourage more girls to study tech, PwC has helped create a partnership with the tech industry called the Tech She Can Charter. This commits companies to work together to increase the number of women working in technology. Launched in 2018, the charter has been signed by more than 100 companies from different industries. As part of the campaign, tech companies are sending executives into schools to promote tech careers for girls and are encouraging more applications from female candidates.
“Going into the classroom, we tend to focus on girls in year 12 and earlier, before they make their GCSE choices. The idea is to make technology fun. We do a kind of Dragons’ Den-style lesson, getting them to develop an app, and we help with skills to achieve that. We give them real-life experience to make it fun and interesting,” says Churchman.
She adds that moves to encourage more women into technology have had a dramatic effect at PwC. Three years ago, just 14% of staff in the technology division were female, but today the figure has reached 27%.
There is further positive news on diversity. BAME groups account for 15% of digital tech workers, according to Tech Nation, significantly higher than the 10% across all UK jobs.
“From a racial and cultural perspective, our industry is very diverse. Gender diversity is improving, but we have relatively strong ethnic diversity in our organisation and it’s positive from a social mobility perspective as well,” says Churchman.
PwC has launched a degree apprenticeship programme in computer science, designed to encourage a more diverse intake of software developers. The course is run in conjunction with the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds, with other tech degree apprenticeships run with Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews. Last year, the scheme took on 109 apprentices. While most computer science programmes tend to have 18% female participation, the PwC degree apprenticeship has attracted 30% women.
“Diversity appears to be nudging in the right direction,” says Rob McCargow, PwC’s director of AI. “It has a significant way to go to reach anything close to parity, but there has been some very encouraging progress in the past year or two.”
He says one of the best things male tech champions can do is to refuse to sit on “manels” – panels at conferences composed entirely of men. McCargow says he refuses to take part in these, and will help organisers find women to take part.
He points out that a lack of diversity can have serious consequences. The tech sector is suffering from a skills shortage that many believe will only be overcome by encouraging more women to work in the field.
Another adverse consequence is that decision-making in vital areas, such as artificial intelligence, risks falling foul of gender and racial bias if the programmers are all straight, white males. AI is used to make crucial decisions about people’s lives, such as awarding loans and selecting job candidates, so a diverse workforce is key to identifying and mitigating bias within the system.
Meanwhile, tech companies themselves could suffer from a lack of diversity, as their clients increasingly demand to work with teams that reflect the whole of society, not just the male part of it.
Workforce diversity in technology matters to us all. Vital services, from health and education to commerce and finance, are being transformed by the digital revolution. Tech’s impact on our lives is too far-reaching to allow it to be dominated by a small section of society.
