Approximately 24% of people who work in “big tech” are women. This is derived from the fact that approximately 24% of tech jobs in the group of GAFAM companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) are held by women. This is shockingly low, but basically on par with national employment levels for women in tech.
Overall, women hold 26.7% of computing-related jobs in the U.S., down from a peak of around 31% in 1990. The problem was only exacerbated over the pandemic, during which women in tech were almost twice as likely as men to leave their jobs, be laid off, or get furloughed.
For further analysis, we broke down the data in the following ways:
Key Statistics
Of the GAFAM companies, Amazon has the highest representation of women employment at 45%. However, they do not report numbers on the rate of women in tech jobs specifically, and only 29% of Amazon’s leadership positions are held by women.
Microsoft has the lowest rate of women’s employment in every category: overall, in leadership positions, and in tech-specific jobs. Only 29% of Microsoft’s employees are women, 26% of its leaders, 23% of its tech employees.
While Google has the highest rate of women in tech jobs among GAFAM companies at 25%, they also have the second-lowest rate of overall women employment (33%) and women in leadership positions (28%).
These numbers are borne out in personal experience as well. 72% of women who work in tech say that they are outnumbered by men in meetings by a ratio of at least 2:1, with many others reporting even greater disparity.
Key Statistics About Women in Big Tech
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What percentage of tech CEOs are women?
15% of tech CEOs are women. Considering that 37% of entry-level tech roles are held by women and 19% of senior VPs in the tech industry are women, it’s clear that there’s a gender gap at each stage of career progression in tech.
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What percent of technology degrees are held by women?
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How many women are in the tech industry?
Approximately 1.5 million women work in the tech industry in the U.S. 26.7% of computer and mathematical occupations (IT jobs, programming, software and web development, etc.) are held by women, according to the latest BLS numbers.
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What is the ratio of men to women in the technology industry?
The ratio of men to women in the technology industry is about 3:1. This is based on the fact that only 25% of computing and mathematical jobs in the U.S. are held by women. If we take a broader view of the tech industry to include non-tech jobs at tech companies, this ratio comes closer to 2:1.
Regardless of how you measure it, men significantly outnumber women in tech workspaces.
49.7% of technology degrees are held by women. This accounts for all bachelor’s degrees in the STEM field. With only 25% of computing-related jobs being held by women, comparatively few who graduate with a STEM degree start or remain at a tech job.
With a total of 5,688,000 Americans employed in such professions overall, we’re left with about 1,490,256 women in tech jobs.
References
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Census – American Community Survey Reports. “Occupations in Information Technology.” Accessed on February 23, 2022.
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey (2021).” Accessed on February 23, 2022.
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Zippia. “Women In Technology Statistics.” Accessed on February 23, 2022.
Author
Matthew Zane is the lead editor of Zippia's How To Get A Job Guides. He is a teacher, writer, and world-traveler that wants to help people at every stage of the career life cycle. He completed his masters in American Literature from Trinity College Dublin and BA in English from the University of Connecticut.
