More than 20,000 Black women are currently “missing” from the IT industry, according to a new report.

Research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and Coding Black Females revealed that while Black women make up 1.8 per cent of the UK workforce, they only make up 0.7 per cent of IT professionals.

The figures demonstrate that to be truly represented, there would need to be around 20,000 Black women join the industry.

The study suggests that Black women face barriers to progression within the sector, including lack of flexible working, career development support, and a strong “tech bro” culture in some organisations.

“High-stakes fields like data science and cyber security desperately need many more technologists from a diverse range of backgrounds, who all see computer science as an ethical, aspirational career choice,” said Charlene Hunter MBE, a BCS board member and chief executive of Coding Black Females. “While there are some really inclusive IT organisations, our research with BCS found that successful black women (and women in general) working in tech are often where they are despite the prevailing culture and limited flexibility in their working options, and lack of inclusive working culture.”

The report also found that the number of women as a whole has only increased from 17 per cent in 2017 to 22 per cent in 2021.

If gender representation as whole in IT were equal to the workforce 'norm' there would have been an additional 486,000 female IT specialists in the UK, said the study.

“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 those systems," said Rashik Parmar MBE, chief executive of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. “The gender gap in IT is showing signs of narrowing, and groups such as BCS Women have worked for many years to move the dial."

Parmar added: "Coding Black Females are inspiring women of colour into digital careers, but our joint report shows the tech profession still has profound work to do to become truly inclusive, trusted and ready to solve the world’s greatest challenges.”

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