Gender gap: Women lag men by nearly 3 years in Tech experience

Compared: men and women’s average years of experience in tech 

New data offers insight into progress towards equal access, highlights experience gap 

Gender inequality in tech has remained a key site of discussion throughout 2023 thus far. The increase in mainstream coverage of the conversation in recent years has undoubtedly increased awareness, but tangible progress is still hard to mark. 

In the context of recent research into the gender balance at both leadership and middle management levels in tech, Anderson Frank, a Tenth Revolution Group company, has mined new data to explore the question of how long women have been in the sector on average compared to men. 

Commenting on this new data, Anderson Frank Chairman and CEO James Lloyd-Townshend said: “We know that women are under-represented at every level in tech, but what this new data really shows us is that there’s an experience gap at work for those women already in the sector. With that gap at almost three years, it’s not difficult to see how this impacts progression and access to those more senior and leadership roles. Not only are there fewer of those positions available, but male tech professionals effectively have a head start in terms of their experience in the sector.” 

“This data is also a reminder that the conversation around inclusion has to be more than just a discussion of the numerical gender balance at each level. The numbers are important and we have to keep pushing towards equal access, but we also have to be exploring the question of progression and how training and development opportunities, and experience factor into that. It’s vital that women are able to enter the sector and that they’re able to progress within it. Experience is a massive part of that.” 

Methodology 

Statistics were derived from the latest (2022-2023) Careers & Hiring Guides offered by Tenth Revolution Group and its recruitment brands. The total sample size for this study was 3093, of which 2230 were men and 766 were women. The data corresponds to tech professionals working across NetSuite, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Azure, and Business Applications, as well as Amazon Web Services.