A new report from the Tech Talent Charter (TTC) has revealed that the UK’s tech industry is not representative of the wider working population.
Just 6% of professionals in the tech industry for example have a disability, compared to 23% of the UK working population, according to TTC’s latest Diversity in Tech report. Additionally, only 9% identify as ‘working class’, compared to 39% of the UK population. Gender and ethnic representation in software engineering is also particularly low (20% and 22% respectively). In fact, very few women or those from ethnic minority groups hold senior tech roles (21% and 14% respectively).
There are also shockingly low levels of neurodiversity in the tech industry, with just 3% of talent identifying as neurodivergent, compared to 15-20% estimates of the wider population, as reported. Trans representation in tech is also very low at just 0.17%. The TTC noted that all measures of diversity in tech lag behind other UK benchmarks, and is concerned that companies are defunding their D&I efforts, a trend that will only make these problems worse.
REPRESENTATION IN TECH MATTERS
“Companies are abandoning D&I initiatives, citing the tough economic climate as the reason,” noted Karen Blake, Co-CEO of the Tech Talent Charter. “The unfortunate fact of the matter is that ditching D&I is only going to hurt their productivity and performance in the long run. More concerningly, we’re observing a trend of businesses with deeper pockets stepping away from areas of D&I which could create troublesome headlines. Unfortunately, the truth of the issue is that businesses are using the economic climate as a convenient excuse to bin any D&I initiatives that could expose them to criticism in the public eye – something that is impossible to avoid in our highly polarised society. It signals a failure in leadership to step up to our biggest challenges.”
Commenting on the report, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy Saqib Bhatti, said: “Our tech sector does not reflect the UK as a whole – something we must work together to solve. I’m proud to be the UK’s first Muslim Technology Minister, and I understand that this is not just the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do to unlock the full potential of innovation across Britain.
Bhatti pointed out that the UK was the third country to achieve a $1 trillion tech sector valuation and since 2000, it has created 152 unicorns. “Tech plays a vital role in driving growth and generating jobs nationwide. This report is a call to action to cement the UK’s role as a science and tech superpower,” concluded Bhatti.
Click here to access the full report.
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