The UK Tech Workplace Equality Report

UK female tech talent are offered 4% less salary on average than men

Women in technology in the UK are offered 4% less salary on average than men. This is a slight improvement from 2017 when the wage gap was 5% and is much better than the UK median pay gap which is 11.9% across all industries and roles. But, the UK is still lagging behind the US wage gap in tech, which is now 3%.

These figures are even more impactful when translated into cash value. The average salary offered to male tech workers is £66,000 and the average salary offered to women is £63,000. The gap between these figures is a jarring £3,000, which is £250 pounds less in their paycheck every month.

Furthermore, 61% of the time men are offered higher salaries than women for the same role at the same company, indicating that women are getting short changed from the beginning and that a fundamental change in the interview process is required to fix this issue.

67% of women are asking for a lower salary than male peers

A finding from our UK data which mirrors this year’s US data is that a factor behind the gender wage gap is that women are asking for less money than men — around £5k on average in fact.

The expectation gap between men and women is almost double the actual wage gap at 7%. This is because women aren’t asking for much more than they end up receiving, while men more often have the confidence to “shoot for the moon” and ask for around £4k more than they end up receiving.

The expectation gap hasn’t improved much since last year. Worryingly, 67% of women are asking for a lower salary than male peers this year, which is 5% more of the female tech population than last year.

General discrimination against women must also be addressed

Data transparency is a key part of reducing inequality and discrimination within the hiring process. We believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that the tech industry is evolving with diversity, equity and inclusion top of mind. Despite growing awareness around diversity issues, our survey revealed there is still work to be done to ensure that the tech workplace is fair and equal for all candidates.

3 in 5 women have felt discriminated against in the workplace because of their gender. The different kinds of discrimination experienced by women are as follows.

• Hiring

  84% of all interview requests go to men and only 16% to women. Even more worrying is that, 39% of job roles that firms were hiring for only put out interview requests to men, while just 4% went out to just women. It’s unlikely that organisations set out to just interview men and this likely demonstrates that there is still a troubling lack of women in the tech landscape for businesses to interview

• Bias

  However, our survey results showed there may also be issues with the interview process itself as half of women felt they had experienced bias during the interview process, compared to just 13% of men

• Harassment

  3 in 5 women have felt discriminated against in the workplace because of their gender — mostly because they feel they aren’t taken seriously (74%). Unfortunately, a third (29%) of women have also experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

Tech workers believe organisations and the UK government must fix the wage gap

Tackling gender discrimination and inequality isn’t a simple task.

Although the majority of people (87% of women and 64% of men) believe the UK government should enforce a law which requires companies to demonstrate that they pay men and women fairly, most also believe that the onus is on company leaders.

Black tech workers are heavily under-represented In UK tech

The vast majority (66%) of tech workers in the UK identify as white. The rest of the workforce define themselves as black, hispanic, asian, mixed or multi racial.

What Ethnicity Are UK Tech Workers?

• Share

When comparing this to the ethnicity split in London where most of our respondents are based, its evident that Asian and mixed/multiple race people are better represented in tech, white people are over-represented and black people are heavily under-represented. 13% of London’s population define as black but only a shocking 3% of the tech industry in London are black.

There is an ethnicity pay gap in the UK

The Ethnicity Wage Gap

The majority of people in the UK tech industry believe that there is an ethnicity wage gap as well as a gender pay gap. However, our survey found that some groups are more likely to think this than others.

LGBTQIA+ women more likely to face discrimination than LGBTQIA+ men

8% of UK tech workers define themselves as LGBTQIA+

Neurodiverse people often not taken seriously in the workplace

1 in 10 people in the tech workforce consider themselves to be neurodiverse

This is the first time we are including neurodiversity in one of our diversity studies. Why? As we recognise that acknowledging and welcoming people from all genders, races, ages and sexualities is hugely beneficial to the tech community, it is also important to understand that people think differently. This shouldn’t be a “diversity tick box” exercise for firms, but should be seen as something that will ensure that tech continues to flourish.

Age is one of the biggest factors behind discrimination in tech

How Old Are Tech Workers?

The UK tech workforce is relatively young — most people we surveyed (42%) were 22 to 37 (35%). Only 20% were aged 38 to 53 and just 2% are over 54.

The UK tech workforce is relatively young — most people we surveyed (42%) were 22 to 37 (35%). Only 20% were aged 38 to 53 and just 2% are over 54.

When looking at the gender split by age, we identified that the majority of men (35%) had been in tech for over ten years in contrast to women who mostly (23%) had only worked in tech for two to four years. This could point to a number of trends — as tech becomes more mainstream, perhaps more women are joining the workforce. Or on the flipside more women could be leaving the workforce after working in the industry for a few years.