We’re delighted to have recently launched our first ever RWA Auckland IT Salaries Report. Our survey of over 2,000 Auckland IT professionals from a variety of roles, backgrounds, and industries, provides a deep look into the Auckland IT market, shedding light on salary by role, engagement type, and specific insights into generation, gender, and career motivators.
One of the key statistics that our report revealed, was the disparity between men and women in the IT workforce. While discussion about the gender gap is hardly a new revelation, our survey focused solely on Auckland IT professionals shows that it’s still a significant issue in the sector – and one that isn’t getting as much attention as it should. Not only is there a gap between men and women when it comes to salary, but women are consistently outnumbered and underrepresented across all roles, especially when it comes to senior positions.
Career Pathways a Struggle for Women
One of the biggest lowlights of Auckland IT’s gender gap, is the number of women in Executive Management roles. In conducting our survey, we broke down the IT sector into various different role types; Executive Management, Management, Project, Business, Development, Network, Systems, and Testing. While women were outnumbered in every area and the overall male to female ratio was at 82:18, it was in Networking roles and Executive Management, a bracket consisting of CIO and CTO roles, where the most questions were raised. Of all of our respondents in the Executive Management category, none were women. This statistic especially is cause for serious concern in IT circles, suggesting that the sector struggles with creating pathways for women in IT to ascend to higher-level positions.
At our recent launch event, Liz Gosling, CIO at AUT University, spoke about the challenges faced by women in the male-dominated technology industry.
“It is really disappointing. Since 1981, which is when the 80 to 20 split in the sector was established, this has not shifted at all. I am sorry, but you have to make your workplaces more female friendly,” said Gosling.
“But it’s important to avoid band-aid solutions and address the root of the issue: unconscious bias. We need to get past this.
“You could do blind recruitment, having HR people remove personal information such as gender and names, to ensure that the person doing the hiring is looking at the skills, attitude and background of the person.”
Pay Gap Persists Across Most Roles
The lack of women in senior IT roles isn’t the only issue however. The gender pay gap rears its head across all role types, with men being paid more than women in all but one role type surveyed.
Across all roles, women were paid an average 5.85% less than their male counterparts; a gap that persists even when other variables (like education and experience) are accounted for. Although this is lower than the national average gender pay gap, which sits at around 10%, this still translates to around $5,000 per year; a significant amount of money.
The one area in which women have a higher average salary than men is in the Business role type; mostly covering Business Analyst roles. It’s no coincidence that this is also the role type in which women are most evenly represented, with 43.43% of respondents being women, as opposed to the 18.34% average.
Summary
It’s clear for all to see: the IT sector has a problem when it comes to gender. Women in the Auckland IT sector are significantly underrepresented, especially in high-level leadership roles, and while the pay gap across the market is lower than in other industries, it’s consistent enough to raise some serious questions. With more initiatives underway to attract women to the technology sector, organisations need to ensure they are not being restricted by bias (either conscious or unconscious) when hiring. Else, they risk falling behind the pack.
For more insights into the Auckland IT market, as well as a role specific index of IT salaries, get your copy of the RWA Auckland IT Salaries report today.