A recent Female Founders Forum report has outlined some of the problems faced by women entering the industry and wanting to go on to set up technology businesses.

The research found that only 17 per cent of technology workers in the UK are currently women.

The report also confirms that under-representation of female students in STEM subjects is still an issue for the sector.

According to the study, just 7 per cent of equity finance raised in the UK goes to female-founded companies.

The report also shines a light on gender bias in venture capital firms - only 13 per cent of decision-makers at these firms in the UK are female, and almost half of firms don’t have any women on their investment teams at all.

Turning to groups such as Founders For Schools to bring in women founders to share their stories is supported by some advocates.

Yorkshire-based female tech entrepreneur Zandra Moore, chief executive at business intelligence and analytics software firm Panintelligence, said: “The Female Founders report is so re-affirming. All of the issues, challenges and gender biases raised in the report are ones I’ve personally experienced.”

She said: “I’ve been lucky enough to have female role models and mentors in my life, particularly my mum, who worked in the emerging technology sector in Leeds in the 1990s.

“She often shares how she made a lot of people rich in the technology businesses she helped grow. Yet despite this, she didn’t have any shares in these businesses, and never thought to ask for any because she didn’t have any role models or peer groups to turn to for advice or support back then.”

The report says careers services, campuses, and careers fairs need to introduce more females to the vast amount of STEM career opportunities. It says that 84 per cent of women have never been introduced to rapidly emerging artificial intelligence or machine learning careers, for instance, on campus or at a careers fair.

Employers also need to offer mid-career retraining opportunities, to improve the diversity of their tech talent “quickly”, says the report.

Organisations such as North Coders are collaborating with businesses like Panintelligence to help employees re-train to become software engineers.

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