Average salaries for women leaders in the technology sector have moved ahead of those for men for the first time, with women’s share of top commercial roles and their earnings both doubling since 2013, according to analysis of 1,000 executive roles.
Average pay for female executives placed in top commercial roles in the tech sector rose from £122,000 in 2013 (less than half the male average) to £330,000 in 2018, executive search firm Odgers Berndtson said, based on analysis of 1,000 placements.
“This put average salaries for women in top commercial roles at technology companies ahead of those for men for the first time” the company, which has placed staff in two thirds of the FTSE100, said this week.
The company noted that significant challenges for gender parity remain, notably across specialist roles: “The gender gap in functional technology roles is not closing as quickly as we might hope,” said Caroline Sands, Odgers Berndtson’s tech practice lead.
She added: “Although the most talented female technologists are now more likely to reach the top, in many specialist areas there won’t be gender parity until fundamental concerns of younger women over culture are addressed.”
(At the end of last year, the Hampton-Alexander review, backed by the government, reported that the number of women on FTSE 100 boards has exceeded 30 percent for the first time, but in smaller companies and executive roles there is still much to do. Its aim is to achieve a third of women on boards of all FTSE 350 companies by 2020.)
Another report published today (“Women, Leadership, and the Priority Paradox”) by IBM’s Institute for Business Value in cooperation with Oxford Economics, meanwhile found that only 18 percent of senior leadership positions are held by women leaders.
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IBM said one key lesson was that organisations “are not sold on the business value… 79 percent of respondents indicated that they have not formally prioritised fostering gender equality in leadership within their organisations, even though ample evidence correlates gender equity with improved financial success and competitive advantage.”
“Our survey respondents estimate only 18 percent of their senior leaders are women, meaning 82 percent are men. Given this immense disparity, we can’t escape the fact that when we talk about what organizations are willing to do to advance women, we are talking about what men are willing to do”, the IBM report notes.
“While men acknowledge the existence of gender inequities, many aren’t seeing how their personal behaviors contribute to maintaining the status quo.”
