Something for the weekend – yes, we do need a radical plan to close the gender gap in tech; the latest 'big idea' from the UK isn't it!

There has been a flurry of interest around women in technology this week, as the world celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) 2026 on 8 March – aka, for all too many organisations, international day of releasing the annual press release/LinkedIn post/TikTok clip with the inevitable 'passionate' message of support/admiration/acknowledgement for all the females out there, only to promptly forget all about DEI for the next 364 days.

The UK Government, on the other hand, was (typically) late to the party this year, waiting for some reason until a few days after IWD to release its latest brand-new plan to ‘help more women and girls enter the tech sector’.

Dubbed ‘Breaking down barriers’, the plan - 2026 v1.0 -  boasts that women at every stage of their careers will benefit from these measures to boost female participation in tech. And it reminds us that women remain significantly underrepresented in tech, which costs the UK economy an estimated £2 billion to £3.5 billion a year. 

Where are we?

Before we dig into the different ways the UK Government is planning to tackle this persistent problem, let’s take stock of the current situation regarding women and technology.

According to the Government, 29% of UK tech employees are women or non-binary. For many years, that figure sat closer to 25%, so it’s positive there has been an increase.

However, when it comes to more technical roles, the number of women drops. The most recent British Computer Society (BCS) Gender Diversity Report found there were 441,000 female IT specialists in the UK in 2024, representing 22% of the overall number. If gender representation were equal to the workforce 'norm' (49%), it notes, that would require an additional 530,000 female IT specialists.

Meanwhile, when think tank Interface analyzed data on nearly 1.6 million AI professionals worldwide, 22% were women, and in engineering and technology roles, women account for just 17% of the workforce, according to EngineeringUK. 

Women are also using tech tools less than men in their daily tasks. Research from the Oliver Wyman Forum shows that while 59% of male workers use generative AI tools at least once a week, only 51% of women do. And when a group of 1,000 UK students were recently asked how often they use AI as part of their degree studies, 42% of men said they use it once a week or more, compared to only 26% of women.

What?

Clearly then there’s a definite need to encourage women to use the latest tech tools more frequently, and to consider pathways to a career in technology. So what’s the UK Government’s latest cunning plan to solve this ongoing conundrum?

Well, it’s got several parts to it, starting from getting young girls interested in tech.The official blah-blah from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) declares:

Fixing the talent gap means starting long before the workplace and girls need to see themselves in tech before they ever reach their first job. This year IBM delivered the CyberFirst Girls Competition to over 10,000 students, and IBM have confirmed they will be partnering with DSIT to deliver the new TechFirst Girls Competition, launching later this year.

The competition will see thousands of 12- and 13-year old girls use technologies like AI and coding to think creatively and problem-solve to compete in challenges. DSIT adds:

It provides girls insight into how tech can be used to tackle problems, and what a future career in tech might be like.

There’s also a jobs program, although this is far smaller in scope. The aim is to give 300 women paid work placements of a minimum six months at SMEs across the country. The scheme is backed by a £4 million TechFirst Women’s Program, and will launch later this year. DSIT pitches:

The program will provide women with coaching and interview prep support. This will help women open new career opportunities, and help SMEs adopt and innovate with AI and tech in their operations.

A new returners scheme, meanwhile, is designed to help skilled software developers re-enter the workforce into senior tech roles in government. Pilots at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice will be open to any software developers who have been away from work for more than 18 months.

Combined, these three programs aim is to attract more women to tech, deter them from leaving the tech sector, and therefore lead to a fairer society. DSIT argues:

Women leaving tech has real consequences for the technology being built, with inherent biases built into designs by an unrepresentative workforce - unfairly impacting women.

It cites AI tools used in recruitment favouring male names nearly five times more than females, and AI models built to predict liver disease being twice as likely to miss the disease in women. 

DIST Secretary of State Liz Kendall sums up how seriously the UK Government claims to be taking the situation:

If we don’t address these issues now, we’ll still be having this conversation in decades’ time and that isn’t good enough. We’re acting through a skills and jobs package to get more women into tech quickly. These aren’t warm words - they’re real jobs, real placements, and real routes back in through a door that has been too hard to open, for too long.

But...

While I’m in favor of any efforts to break down barriers for women in tech, this plan just comes across as big on box-ticking gesture, but unambitious in scope. The UK Government bemoans the £2 billion to £3.5 billion lost every year due to the under-representation of women in tech – good! - and then commits a measly £4 million to tackle the issue - poor! Compare this to the recent £80 million investment the UK Government has announced to boost UK skills for defence careers, for example, itself a sum criticised as paltry.

And while the BCS points out that the UK requires an additional 530,000 female IT specialists to achieve gender parity, this plant if followed through and successful in meeting it very limited objective, would result in just 300 additional jobs for women, any one of whom can then be let go after just six months. I’m concerned that the businesses involved might just take the money and then cut ties as soon as the funding runs out.

Returners schemes are always welcome, as many women still find it difficult to re-enter the workforce after a career break. But we need it opened up to all women returning after a career break, rather than being restricted to skilled software developers though. That distinction makes me wonder whether this scheme is as much to do with filling skills gaps in government IT departments, as breaking down barriers for women to enter the tech sector.

And finally there’s the TechFirst Girls Competition, which will see thousands of young girls competing in tech and AI challenges. Opportunities like this, where girls are encouraged to work together to solve computing problems, could certainly spark interest in technology among participants. But back in the classroom, the same issues remain, with girls out-numbered in technical subjects and the perception that computing is for boys.

Radical re-think

All these initiatives could see the number of women working in the tech sector increase, and allow the necessary political back-patting - something must be done, this is something, let's do this etc - but at a snail’s pace. Bottom line - there is nothing in this latest plan that offers anything different to hundreds of similar schemes that have been tried before. If we want to see real change, and soon, far more radical steps are needed.

So, what would I do if I were put in charge of policy? Well, here's the 'Madeline Manifesto'.

Firstly, make computing a core subject at school, at the same level as math, English and science. Too often we are told that it's math that puts girls off computing, but girls still all have to take a math exam at 16 – and in jobs like accountancy, which is all about numbers and math, there’s no gender gap like we see in tech. IT is special, it seems. 

Similarly with science, another core subject that all girls have to study up until 16 in the UK, the gender gap is around 40/60 women to men. If girls are forced to study a subject at school, they’re much more likely to end up in a related career. Why not computing?

Second, split computing classes by gender. So many young girls still have the perception that computing is a boys subject, and are deterred from taking it as an exam subject at 16 as they worry the class will be all boys. If you start off at age 11, the first year of secondary education in the UK, with just girls in the computing class, that removes that obstacle, as girls will just see loads of other girls around them.

Third, give some kind of financial incentive for investors in female-founded tech startups. Only two percent of global VC money currently goes to female-only founding teams, compared to 84% for all-male teams! It needs to be much easier for women to obtain investment in their start-up ideas. When this happens, those women are more likely to hire other women, based on the ‘looks like me’ hiring principle that’s still going strong among the tech bros.  

Finally, offer generous rewards for companies that close the gender gap in their tech workforce. I’m no fan of quotas, and am very aware of the potential for accusations of tokenism here, but enticing companies to introduce bias in favor of women for once would lead to more gender-balanced IT teams, as well as forcing businesses to make a lot more effort to nurture female tech talent at early stages.

If you have strong views on the subject of women in tech, you can have your say by filling out the Women in Tech Taskforce’s call for evidence. We need everyone's input if we are to make genuine change. Or should we just wait until next year's token posturing comes around again?