Despite decades of progress towards workplace equality, women remain woefully underrepresented in the UK’s technology workforce. The figures speak for themselves: 1 according to the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), just 15% of the people working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) roles across the UK are female – and only 5% of leadership positions in the technology industry are held by women. What’s more, the imbalance doesn’t appear And behind the sobering statistics, it seems Only likely to be redressed any time soon: the there are wider societal problems at play. 4 5% UK’s future pipeline of technology talent A study by the Organisation for Economic is also heavily skewed towards men, with Co-operation and Development (OECD) Only women accounting for just 15.8% of the found that girls still lack the confidence to of leadership positions UK’s current generation of engineering pursue high-paid careers in science and and technology undergraduates². This lack technology, despite their school results 15% in the technology industry of a strong tech talent pipeline is starting being as good as – or better than – those are held by women to impact organisations. Our Global CEO achieved by boys. 3 Survey reveals that two thirds of UK CEOs say recruiting people with digital skills is of people working in STEM difficult, compared with only 43% of CEOs roles in the UK are female in the US and just 24% in China. CEOs say that STEM skills are also harder to recruit in the UK than elsewhere. 1 http://www.wes.org.uk/statistics 2http://www.wes.org.uk/statistics 3www.pwc.com/davos 4Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31733742 1 PwC