dramatically, but few will ever think of a woman. “The teachers don’t make the introduction to IT something appealing for young girls. It’s still considered geeky. Recruiting more IT teachers who are women or simply recognising what girls aged 10 to 14 are interested in would help. Also the contents of the current ICT GCSE should not be an exam, but standard in all parts of the curriculum. Using applications such as Word and Excel for all homework in History, Geography intertwines IT into everything, raising standards in proficiency,” says Kirstin Duffield.
CHANGE NEEDED IN THE FUTURE So, how can more women be attracted to work in IT in the future? Finding more women for IT roles in the future could be even more difficult. “The drastic reduction since 2004, of the number of UK students across the board taking school IT exams. There has been over 65% drop in GCSE candidates from 2004 – 2010 and only 5000 students took computing A-level in 2010. This is having the opposite impact on IT skills that the market needs. We will all be able to use tablets and smartphones, but not develop the systems used on them,” warns Duffield, but “by making IT more about all the associated roles, business analysis, project management, training, sales,” we can attract more women into the industry. At the same time, not all women want to move into senior positions. “I’m at a turning point at the moment,” says Faulkner who has just stepped into a managerial position. “I need to choose between staying at this level, with some access to programming work or decide that I want to progress and move up. My ambition was always to be a programmer at the top of my game, but I’m really enjoying the analysis and management side of things so I may move more in that direction. I also want to get more actively involved in encouraging young women to come into IT.”
In some ways the IT industry itself should be best placed to support the encouragement and advancement of women into all roles. After all we do have the technology. Applied in the right way it could enable more women to carry on working and developing their careers.
“It’s a field in which remote working and flexible hours are eminently feasible – certainly for programmers. This means working around childcare, if that’s an issue, is a lot easier. The remuneration is often good, although there can still be a bit of a pay gap in some companies. We as women in IT need to get media exposure, get into schools, talk to young women and show them that being a woman in IT doesn’t mean you have to kiss good bye to your femininity. We need to raise our profile,” concludes Faulkner.
CLARE PATTERSON, PRINCIPAL ADVISOR AT KPMG
I work in information security so my Masters is particularly useful, but much of my work also draws on the wider business understanding I gained through my MBA. I like solving puzzles and building things. IT is always changing, so there are always new things to explore and
better ways of achieving things. I like being able to resolve issues my clients are facing. I get real satisfaction from fixing issues for them. I also enjoy being able to translate technical issues into business speak, which enables the business to really understand the issue and make a sensible decision.
I want to be able to help organisations get the most
from their IT. When done well, IT has such an important role in enabling businesses to beat their competitors and bring new products/services into the world. This can be masked when people are purely technology focused for the sake of it rather than seeing how it can be used by the business. Clare has a BSc in management science with computer science, an MSc in Information Security, a KPMG EMBA from University of Edinburgh and ENPC.
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