Diversity In The Tech Industry: Statistics 2024

The technology industry is one of the most powerful and important in today’s economy. And forecasts indicate that its future potential will continue to gain momentum for possible economic leadership. However, in terms of diversity and inclusion, it is one of the industries with the biggest gaps.

Inequity in the technology industry is evident and measurable, so that will be our focus today. We will review the diversity data in the industry from a global perspective down to the small parts that make up the whole. If you are looking for more D&I stats we also covered the general statistics of diversity in the workplace.

These are the three major tech industry statistics themes we will review in this article:

– Diversity in Technology Statistics: Editor’s pick

– The bigger picture worldwide

– Gender inequality in the tech industry

– Tech industry demographics

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Diversity in Technology Statistics: Editor’s pick

• Only 44% of tech employees work at a company with a D&I department.
• Only one in five tech students is female.
• The total share of women employed in tech does not reach 30% and for black women, the share is under 5% only.
• Overall, more than half of surveyed female technologists reported having experienced some form of gender discrimination, compared to just 10 percent of men.
• Around 44% of CEOs and cofounders of tech companies experienced harassment in the workplace.
• IT companies with more than 20% female representation in senior management largely see a better financial performance.
• 67% of the respondents have 0 to 25% of black executives in their leadership teams.

1. The Bigger Picture Worldwide

Let’s dive into the statistics of the tech industry and its Diversity and Inclusion practice worldwide, how it affects job resignations, and general approaches to minorities representation:

• 61% of tech employees worldwide believe D&I initiatives can be effective in the workplace. But still, a high percentage (14%) think it is not effective at all.
• For CEOs and founders, the skepticism is stronger. Most of them think D&I initiatives are not effective (51%).
• Only 44% of tech employees work at a company with a D&I department. Meaning that many tech companies are not paying attention to the issue which contributes to maintaining inequality in the industry.
• Many tech employees quit their job due to unfair treatment and compared to the non-tech industry, the issue in tech companies is 10% more common.
• The group that leaves the most due to unfairness is the black men with 40% of the leaver belonging to this group.
• By 2021 women represented only 29% of the workforce in technology companies while ethnic minorities were just 22%. And data shows that the cybersecurity area is the one with less representation of both groups, with just 12% of representation in each one.

• On a scale from 0 to 10, Zoom is the company at the top in the ranking for D&I in the tech industry. Uber, Amazon, and PayPal are the tale of the ranking with a score of 4, 3.5, and 3.2 respectively.

Sources: TrustRadius D&I, TrustRadius CEO, TrustRadius, HarrysPoll, CapGemini, LinkHumans.

2. Gender Inequality in the Tech Industry : Statistics

Looking at the statistics, women are outnumbered in the technology industry.

Starting from schools and universities, in the computer science classrooms, young female students already find themselves being in the minority.

The same phenomenon continues in the tech industry, where women again have disproportionately low representation and discrimination. The more managerial and technical the role is, the less likely that a female employee is occupying that role.

But let’s begin with the starting point: studies.

This is the data of bachelor’s students enrolled in computer science and tech in the US.

• Only one in five tech students is female. An even more worrying sign is that the percentage of female graduates is lower today than it was more than twenty years ago.
• Despite the recovered share of two percent from 2008, female students’ presence in Computer Science was still much lower in 2018 than in 1998, which points to a recession of female interest in this field in the past two decades. Very curious when a woman, Ada Lovelace, was the mother of programming.

Female bachelor students of computer science

• Black women face a double obstacle in the tech industry. The total share of women employed in tech does not reach 30% and for black women, the share is under 5% only. The gap is immense compared to their white peers and it is a sign of a lack of strategies and attention to diversity and inclusion in the industry.

Another important category to break the big picture of women into pieces is the top management positions women occupied if any, in the tech industry.

• Data shows that the higher up the corporate ladder the fewer women there are. This gender imbalance is not only found in open offices but up in board rooms and executive offices.
• Women in tech management positions made up 16% of such positions in 2019, although only three percent of all CEO positions were held by women.

What is the reason for that glass ceiling preventing women from getting to the top position in tech? Let’s dive a bit deep into these statistics.

• The most recent survey of women in technology industries showed that most of them (60 to 69 %) do not see a clear path to continue growing their careers in the companies and that is the main barrier to promotion.
• The second most mentioned barrier is the lacking of mentorship. Is an issue experienced by almost half of the women but is strongly marked in black women. This phenomenon is usually explained by experts because of the “bro” culture in organizations. Meaning that men create their support groups in the workplace and unintentionally those practices lead to leaving the women aside and without support in their labor duties.

• Other barriers mentioned in the survey are gender bias and limited budget. Both reasons are shared by white and black women.

• Additionally, there is a reason mentioned by 37% of black women and only 7% of white women regarding the lack of trust in their abilities to pursue their careers. And interesting data that offers hints about women’s self-confidence in the tech industry and the effects of their race.

For making clear the Bro culture, it serves as the manifestation of a kind of sexist and macho atmosphere at work. It refers to the kind of work culture that encourages fraternal networks that provide support and resources to fellow male colleagues while blocking female workers from joining the male-dominated decision-making processes.

• Although bro culture does impact both male and female employees alike who are not part of the enclosed circles, women are far more susceptible to its harmful influences of it.
• More than two-thirds of female respondents reported having experienced pervasive bro culture compared to less than half of male respondents. Such culture can create a negative working environment in many ways, including but not limited to creating a glass ceiling that hinders women from getting ahead in their careers and normalizing sexually harassing behavior.

Statistics show employees experiencing Bro culture in 2021

Statistics and comparatives among countries worldwide can help as an example of how big and systematic is the underrepresentation of women in tech. Not even countries with good gender balance in the general labor force have been able to achieve good numbers for women representation in tech jobs.

• For instance, France, one of the countries with the best gender balance in the general labor force, has almost the same share of women employed in tech as India, a country with poor women representation in the general workforce.

• Women are aware of these dynamics in IT teams and that is why for women it is extremely influential to the employer’s reputation regarding diversity and inclusion practices (33% affirms so). This women’s behavior can help the companies understand D&I’s importance for recruitment processes and not losing women’s talents which prefer companies with a better reputation.
• On the other side, is worrying about how men react to D&I practices. They are not very concerned about it (22% affirms is not influential at all) and it may be a reflection of their privileges in the industry.

The pay gap is just one form of discrimination women experience in the tech workplace. A lack of respect for one’s technical abilities as well as a lack of leadership and promotional opportunities are other frequent forms of discrimination that female tech employees are also faced with.

• Overall, more than half of surveyed female technologists reported having experienced some form of gender discrimination, compared to just 10% of men. The unofficial figures could be much higher. Gender discrimination often goes unreported in the workplace, as many female employees fear repercussions.

• Gender discrimination is not reserved for regular employees. Around 44% of CEOs and cofounders of tech companies experienced harassment in the workplace in 2017 and also the same figures for 2020.
• When it comes to policy changes we can see again the lack of support and understanding from male employees of women’s reality. While almost 50% of women think it is extremely important to implement changes in policies to support D&I, 17% of men think it is not important at all.
• In 2020 Facebook and Apple were over 30% of the share of management positions with women and Amazon was almost 30%. These are good approaches, at least from the academic perspective which indicates that 30% is a representative number of a population that can have a voice.

• The states with a smaller gender gap in the workforce in the US are South Carolina and South Dakota with a 38% share of woméen tech workers. While Idaho and Wyoming are the states with a greater gap with 28% of the share.
• It is also interesting how internal teams in tech are also biased against women. For instance, until 2009, there is no data about female web developers in the US.
• From a worldwide perspective, we can see that men dominate the game development industry. Just until 2021 women got to a share of 30%, a share they have been fighting for years. From 2014 to 2019 they could only grow from 22% to 24%.
• Also, other genders are sharing 8% of game developers’ positions for 2021, a great achievement compare to the 2% they shared in 2014.

• In another field: software development, the ground is very hostile to gender diversity. Women share only 5% of the position and other genders do not even reach 2%.
• Covid and women in tech: Covid.19 impacted the tech industry tremendously, but women suffered most of the negative effects. They felt 23% more burnout at work than men and took more responsibility at work and home in children’s care. While around 15% of men noticed no change at all with covid 19. This difference shows that covid 19 exerted extra pressure on women in tech.
• On top of fulfilling their professional duties, more than 40 percent of women have to also take on most of the household work. Only 11 percent of their male peers, on the other hand, reported having taken on the same share of household duties.
• Women are also more likely to work more overtime or take on more responsibility at work, and almost twice as likely to be laid off or furloughed.

• Compared to IT companies with less than 15% female representation in senior management, those with more than 20% female leaders largely see better financial performance: the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin almost doubled from 16 to 30% and cash flow return on investment (CFROI) more than doubled from 6.2 to 14.14%, demonstrating higher profitability and valuation.

Sources: Statista, TrustRadius Women Barriers, CapGemini, Dice Holdings,  Women who tech, Statista survey large tech companies,  Bureau of Labor Statistics.

3. Tech Industry Demographics Statistics

Talked already about gender diversity and see the big gaps in the tech industry, we can continue to matter as ethnicity and race, are even less represented in the workplace than gender diversity. 

• While 19% of web developers in the US are women, just 6% are black people, 34% are Asian and 5.9% are Hispanics or Latinos.
• Black people are more represented in support specialist occupations (13%), software quality assurance, (12%), and information security analysis (11%). While web developers are the occupation where they are more underrepresented (3.7%).
• Asian people have better shares of representation in US tech than other groups. They have a higher representation in software development and computer programing, while the least is in information security analysis (6.9%).
• Hispanic and Latino group is the least represented group in the tech industry. Only information security analysis web and digital interface designers are the occupations with at least 15% of the representation. The rest of them are in one-digit percent representation.

Black People in Technology

• It is very alarming how low is the representation of black people (POC, people of color) in management positions. A survey of more than 1000 employees reveals that 67% of the respondents have 0 to 25% of black executives in their leadership teams.

• And as we showed for gender diversity, black people also face barriers to finding mentorship and growing their careers in the tech workplace. About 63% of black employees find it difficult to find a mentor while only 28% of their white peers find it difficult.

• 71% of black employees believe their companies should do more to address racial inequality in the workplace. 23% of white workers think their companies are doing enough. This can also be a sign of the lack of support and understanding of their black peers’ reality in their workplace.

• When black employees are asked how would they prefer their tech companies to support them and address inequality, they prefer the company to put their efforts into diverse recruitment. Pointing once again to the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace for the well-being of existing employees and future ones.

Sources: Statista IT Industry, TrustRadius Report.

Is your company offering jobs for people with disabilities? As an employer, you can publish your job offers on MyDisabilityJobs and reach thousands of qualified candidates.

Conclusion

The technology industry still has a long way to go to close the diversity and inclusion gaps. A task that is still pending and that is indispensable for new generations and new talents. Both minority groups and women are increasingly taking into account the efforts of companies to be equitable and that is an important step to push for a change in the policies of these companies.

However, the road ahead also starts with education from childhood to allow underrepresented groups to develop technology skills. The current landscape is one dominated by mostly white males but hopefully, soon the picture will take on a different hue and diversify in favor of all.

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