Gender imbalance IT's "white elephant"

Males outweigh females in the IT industry by a factor of more than three to one, according to statistics released by recruiting firm Greythorn.

A survey of 2,922 showed that 78 per cent of the Australian IT industry was made up of male workers, while only 22 per cent of workers in the study were female.

“IT has always been a heavily male dominated industry. Everyone in the industry knows it’s an issue but it’s always been put in the ‘too hard basket’, very few people have ever tried seriously to address it,” Greythorn's managing director, Richard Fischer, said in a statement.

While females are likely to earn the same salaries as their male colleagues in the general IT workforce, the survey indicates that females are less likely to climb the pay ladder and become IT managers than males.

According to the statistics, there is a trend towards a better gender balance within the industry, as females make up an increased portion of those IT workers with less experience.

Fischer said that attracting more females to the industry was “one way to open the industry up to a talent pool that has until now only been very lightly utilised.

"Finding ways to open the IT industry up to this underutilised group can only be a positive step in addressing the industries skills shortage.”

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