There are a plethora of factors driving Australia’s sustained gendered occupational distribution and poor gender diversity in the technology professions, with research pointing to the role of pervasive gender norms, lack of clarity in skilling pathways, poor workplace culture, and the role of bias and discrimination.

Attracting more women into Australia’s technology sector would help to solve Australia’s digital skills needs and would have tangible benefits for individuals, businesses and the broader economy. This report draws on skills similarity data across over 350 occupations to understand how they align to skills needed in core technology roles. There are 661,300 women with a ‘short-term skilling pathway’ into technology. This means that they could reskill into technology through a short course or on-the-job training, within approximately six months.

Over half of surveyed businesses believe fair and inclusive hiring processes have the largest impact on improving gender diversity, with offering reskilling and upskilling opportunities also ranked as highly effective.

However, research implies that while organisations are prioritising hiring more women, many are neglecting to focus on retaining and promoting women in technology internally.

The majority of surveyed businesses reported insufficient internal opportunities (e.g. lack of reskilling/ upskilling opportunities, unclear paths for promotion or career progression) as the primary challenge faced when attempting to retain women in technology roles.