Date: 2007-06-28 Category: News

Women struggling to break into IT

Women working in the IT industry find it difficult to get their first job, but progress through the ranks quickly once they are in, a new study has revealed.

The Training Camp, a UK training company, found that 67 per cent of all women working in the IT industry thought it was harder to get their foot on the first rung of the career ladder than to climb it, while 52 per cent felt they could move up quicker in the IT sector than in other industries.

Claire Taylor, a systems administrator at ATP Solutions, said that the biggest challenge for women was to demonstrate their suitability in what is traditionally an extremely male dominated sector.

Rob Chapman, chief executive of The Training Camp, explained: "Jobs like project managers and software developers require people who are organised, creative and good with personal interaction, but these are aspects of working in the IT industry that tend to be skirted over."

"It’s a great missed opportunity, that the IT industry has in how it presents it self," said Chapman. "It seems to go out of the way to be unattractive to women."

The government is currently funding a new initiative, Women & Work Sector Pathways, designed to encourage women to take up a career in male-dominated professions.

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