Women in ICT
Image: markara/Shutterstock

Ireland has more women in ICT than the EU average

8 May 2017

Recent figures show that Ireland has more women in ICT roles than the EU average.

Hardly a week goes by where there isn’t some data that highlights the gender gap within the tech sector.

Just last week, Facebook was forced to rebuff claims made by an ex-employee that the company scrutinised work done by its female coders more than that of their male counterparts.

On Equal Pay Day (4 April), Google gleefully announced that it had closed its gender pay gap globally. Three days later, the Department of Labor said it had evidence of monetary disparity between men and women at the company.

Earlier this year, a report showed that women fill less than a quarter of the tech roles in some of the biggest tech companies in the world.

It would appear that the gender gap is a worldwide problem that refuses to go away.

Ireland above average

According to figures released by Eurostat, women are still largely in the minority. The report show that of approximately 1.4m people studying ICT across the EU in 2015, women only accounted for 17pc, with some countries falling far below this.

In the Netherlands, only 6pc of ICT students were women, while in Luxembourg, the figure stood at just 8pc.

However, Ireland appears to be faring better when it comes to women working in the ICT sector.

The EU average for the labour market was 16.1pc. According to Eurostat’s 2015 figures, 18.9pc of ICT specialists in Ireland were women. Bulgaria had the highest percentage of women in the ICT workforce, at 27.7pc.

While Ireland’s figures are above average, less than 20pc still leaves a lot to be desired when women make up more than half of the population.

Across the pond, a recent survey from Spiceworks showed that female workers in ICT tend to be better educated, but paid less.

The report, which surveyed 600 tech workers in the US, showed that 82pc of female respondents held an associate’s degree or higher, compared to 69pc of male respondents. The data also suggests that women working full-time in IT make about 6pc less than men.

Interestingly, Spiceworks’ data also showed that almost 30pc of respondents didn’t intentionally pursue a career in IT, and that women were twice as likely to become “accidental IT pros” compared to men.

For more information on US IT workers, check out Spiceworks’ infographic below.

Women in ICT

Infographic: Spiceworks

Jenny Darmody
By Jenny Darmody

Jenny Darmody became the editor of Silicon Republic in 2023, having worked as the deputy editor since February 2020. When she’s not writing about the science and tech industry, she’s writing short stories and attempting novels. She continuously buys more books than she can read in a lifetime and pretty stationery is her kryptonite. She also believes seagulls to be the root of all evil and her baking is the stuff of legends.

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