Up to 20,000 black women in the UK are “missing” in tech, according to a joint report by activists and groups.
According to this report, the share of black women in the IT sector is 2.5 times less than her share of the overall UK workforce.
Campaign Group Coding Black Females said, “technology needs more people of diverse backgrounds.”
Industry associations recognize that “more needs to be done” to promote diversity.
Coding Black Females (CBF) and her BCS report authors analyzed data from the Office of National Statistics to find that black women make up 1.8% of the UK workforce compared with 0.7% of the tech workforce.
20,000 more black women need to be hired to fill the gap in addition to 12,000 working in the IT department.
Women are said to be underrepresented even in senior management positions. According to the report, in 2021 only 17% of her IT leaders will be women.
According to the report, the proportion of ethnic minorities is generally higher in IT professionals than in the general workforce, largely due to the high proportion of technical professionals of Indian descent.
The authors also sought to shed light on the experience of black women in the industry through surveys and in-depth interviews.
“You have to get used to knowing that you are the only one in the room on the team, in the project, at the conference,” Siba Munsanje, a software engineer at Deloitte, told researchers.
“Now stats are being published related to diversity in tech, we can see there is still a lot of work to do,” said Nicola Martin, head of quality engineering at Adarga, a UK-based artificial intelligence software firm.
“The tech industry needs to encourage more diversity to ensure that people want to stay in the industry.”
The report asked 350 black women to share their experiences.
Respondents felt that more could be done to encourage black female applicants, including working in relevant communities to raise awareness of opportunities.
Some women said the application process and work culture alienate applicants. One of her respondents, quoted in the report, said the culture of “tech bros” is exhausting.
CBF chief executive Charlene Hunter told the BBC that the experiences of women has shown that there are still barriers to entering technical jobs.
“You hear often stories of people applying for roles and not being given any actual feedback. You know you meet all of the criteria, but something doesn’t quite feel right.”
But the discrepancy was not just about the numbers employed but also their opportunities to build careers.
Ms. Hunter said, “We need senior leaders to match the large numbers of black women currently appearing in tech and engineering adverts, with genuine opportunities to progress into rewarding jobs.”
She paid particular attention to the development of artificial intelligence, with concerns that AI systems could exhibit prejudices against different races and genders.
With greater diversity in leadership positions, The idea of bias becomes “built into every part of the design process.”
“We will only be able to build the systems that serve everyone if the diversity of humanity is represented in the project teams that design and build these systems,” said Rashik Parmar, chief executive of the BCS, the professional body for computing.
Nimmi Patel of industry group Tech UK said while steps were being taken to support diversity and inclusion in the tech workforce, “clearly more needs to be done.”
She said, “Both industry and government should work together to inspire, educate, and attract diverse talent to ensure black women – and women in general – enter and progress through the industry.”
Previous Post
Leave a Comment