Women in IT: Most Popular Roles and Career Prospects

Stereotypes often portray the IT industry as a sector reserved exclusively for men. While the percentage of men working in modern technology may have been overwhelming in the past, the trend is now shifting, as evidenced by recurring reports from research centers. Is IT truly an industry open to women?    

The IT industry is open to women

The IT industry is a sector that records the highest growth dynamics year after year, both in terms of career prospects and available positions. Despite the immense interest in modern technology, the industry still suffers from a talent gap. It is estimated that approximately 50,000 positions currently remain unfilled. Such prospects, combined with high earnings, certainly encourage many women to change careers and try their hand in a new industry. Is the IT industry open to women? Absolutely! Women already account for 30% of employment in the IT sector, and this percentage is growing every year. Moreover, IT companies are increasingly prioritizing women, whose competence is in no way inferior to that of men. It is no longer surprising to see a development team composed of 50% women, for whom technical challenges are one of the most attractive aspects of working in the industry.

Why is there a lower number of women in the IT industry?

A little over 30% of employees in IT companies are women. For many, this information is a positive surprise. For others, it still represents an unhealthy gender imbalance in the industry. Why is it that fewer women work in technical and programming roles, while these positions are commonly filled by men? This difference still stems from unhealthy stereotypes that have been nurtured for many years and continue to make themselves felt. Among the most loudly voiced claims, the incompetence of women in the technical aspects of IT work and a lack of interest in modern technology are often at the forefront. In the past, it was also argued that the IT industry, due to its high professional demands, eliminated the possibility of optimizing work-life balance, which is particularly important for women. The good news is that these myths are slowly fading into oblivion, and more and more women are deciding to start a career in IT by applying for computer science studies, participating in courses, or striving to change their professional situation.

Women in the IT industry — what roles do they work in most often?

Many women, while monitoring the job market, are increasingly inclined to test themselves in the IT industry. One of the most significant barriers preventing this move is a lack of relevant programming skills. Does a lack of hard, technical skills eliminate women as candidates for IT jobs? Fortunately, no. According to the latest No Fluff Jobs report, it turns out that as many as 46% of female respondents in the IT industry hold non-programming positions. So, what do nearly half of the women employed in IT actually do? Women often choose non-technical paths, such as software testing, business analysis for IT projects, User Experience, and Project Management. These data clearly show that the path to the world of IT is also accessible to those women who do not have the motivation, time, or desire to learn a programming language from scratch. And what about women who work in positions directly related to programming? As many as 15% of respondents declared that they work with backend languages, while 5.4% work in Frontend.

Women in the IT industry — why is it worth working in IT?

What are the biggest benefits of employment in the IT industry for women? In practice, they do not differ from the advantages perceived by men starting in the industry. The biggest benefits are, of course, the immense satisfaction of working on interesting and developmental projects, high remuneration significantly exceeding the national average, and career advancement prospects unseen in other industries. Women also point to the significant benefit of the industry’s positive reception as a specialized field with a very good reputation. Working in IT certainly belongs to the group of stable employment, where our effort, commitment, and dedication are quickly noticed and translated into tangible benefits. The IT industry also offers broad opportunities to maintain a work-life balance, which is so important in everyone’s professional life. The widespread model of remote and hybrid work makes it easier to maintain a proper balance between work and family, and flexible working hours, increasingly introduced in innovative IT organizations, make it easier to reconcile the role of an IT specialist with the role of a mother.

How to enter the IT industry?

How can a woman start working in IT? Let’s start with education. This is easiest to obtain through engineering or postgraduate studies, but that is an ideal scenario reserved only for young programming students who are just looking for their career path. More and more women working in IT declare that they made the decision to change careers after years of working in other industries. For such a woman, the best solution is education in the form of signing up for a programming course, and in the best case, a bootcamp. A bootcamp prepares us to start our first job in IT, focusing primarily on the practical application of programming knowledge for business needs. Which bootcamp should you choose? That depends on your idea for your career path. However, we can be sure that every woman will find the right path of development and education for herself. You just need to take that one step and decide to enter the exciting world of IT.