This section dives deeper into the gender difference in young people’s perceptions of tech careers. We look at the reasoning behind overwhelming bias towards young men choosing tech as a future career path compared to young women.

The research touches on a concerning trend, one that has received much attention in recent years. Given the significant body of evidence on the positive impacts to firm performance, and innovation of a diverse workforce, as evidenced by Mayer et al. (2017) ¹ – there is a pressing need for the underrepresentation of women in tech to be addressed. But we should not stop there, industry efforts to ensure that the tech workforce is diverse in terms of gender of workers, (and also (dis)ability, ethnicity and age) must be targeted, practically engaged and active to ensure that tech companies are inclusive, and outwardly open to people of all backgrounds.

Young people aged 15-16 were disproportionately likely to want to work in Technology, whilst those people aged 19 and older are more likely to want to start their own business or work in Retail.

Careers that young people aged 15-16, 17-18 and 19+ want to work in the future

We we look further into the age distribution of young people who suggested that they would like a tech career, we notice that 16 year olds are more likely to want to work in Technology than any other age group.

Age of young people who want to work in Technology (normalised by age distribution of the sample)

The Professions are a popular choice of career for all age groups. This perhaps signals the preference instilled through careers guidance and vocational advice at school. It is commonly cited that careers advisors tend to offer advice that reflects their own labour market experiences, and as such, this advice is often suggested to be a barrier to a broad range of career prospects being offered to young people.

It is particularly problematic when careers advice reinforces gender or ethnicity based stereotypes. Research from Beck et al. in 2006 shows that young people receive very little practical information and guidance about the consequences of pursuing particular occupational pathways, and are not engaged in any formal opportunities to debate gender and ethnic stereotyping when it comes to future jobs. Their research focuses on apprenticeships, something that we will come on to discuss. Its findings are particularly worrying for females who work in apprenticeships in sectors with lower completion rates and levels of pay, and which create less opportunity for progression (Beck et al. 2006) ².

Proportion of young people who want to work in technology by gender (%)

Reasons stated by young people (who want to work in Technology) for wanting to work in Technology in the future

Young people that wanted to work in Technology cited the fast moving and exciting nature of the tech sector, the interesting jobs it offers, good pay, and awareness of large tech companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google for stimulating their interest to work in tech.

Perceptions of career factors of young people who want to work in Technology

Young people who wanted to work in Technology cited job security as the most important aspect of future work (93% Very important, and Fairly important) followed by Salary (92% Very important, and Fairly important), Career Progression – 88%, and Work-life balance 88%.

Young people feel strongly about work life balance, 51% suggested this career factor is Very important. As a tech employer, here are three practical steps that you could take to facilitate a company culture conducive to a fulfilling employee experience:

1. ‘20% time’ – Google’s much lauded, but seldomly replicated freedom to innovate has led to the creation of many new products and services, in your company, you may want to experiment with the allocation of innovation time – perhaps beginning at 10% of the working week. Piloting to understand the benefits of an initiative like this should encompass both firm level performance benefits, but critically focus on individuals – this should be about creating a culture – the spillovers of which will be captured in the learnings and outputs of the people that work with you.
2. Set up a social committee – social activities can be usefully integrated into working life, there is ample evidence on the productivity benefits of doing this (take Khavis and Khrishnan’s study on accountants, for example), but there is also research that suggests the positive wellbeing impacts for employees aligns people with the company they work for – a secondary impact of social activity at work (for instance, Medina-Garrido et al.’s study on the Spanish Banking sector finds that mechanisms to promote a work-family balance have a positive impact on wellbeing, and productivity spillovers effect for the company)
3. Adopt flexible working – this might encompass a whole range of activities, that could be customised, based on the culture and needs of your company. It may include remote (out of office) working, flexible time, shift swaps, career breaks, compressed hours – the list goes on. But in many cases, what makes this type of working effective, is a blend of appropriate technology to enable staff to stay connected, and a culture that means wherever and whenever someone is working, they are able to enjoy the same working experience as other colleagues, and capitalise on the benefits that flexibility might yield.

Of those young people who do not want to work in Technology, young men tended to suggest that ‘other areas are more appealing’ at 50% of the sample, whilst young women were more likely than men to perceive that they ‘do not have the skills to work in Technology’, ‘lack knowledge about Technology’, or that it is ‘not for people like them’.

Young people aged over 19 years were more likely to perceive that they do not have the skills to work in technology, and that there are not many tech jobs around than other age groups.

Reasons stated for not wanting to work in technology by age

The UK as a whole has seen a shift away from teaching Information Technology, and towards learning technical skills, like coding and digital making at a young age to endow young people with the skills that they will likely need in light of the increasing pervasiveness of digital tech through the economy.

Nesta’s 2015 report on Young Digital Making ¹ tracks changes in the digital landscape with regards to young people and education. In 2010 computing became part of the curriculum in Scottish schools, and at the start of the academic year in 2014 computing become a new subject in the National Curriculum for England. This meant that aspects of programming and computer science were incorporated in lessons for all young people aged six to 14.

The fact that many of the changes were not experienced by older young people in our sample might go some way to explain the difference in response by age, where older groups are likely to perceive that they do not have the skills needed to work in Technology.

Extra curricular activities should therefore play a role in enabling young people aged 19+ to engage with some of the learning, technologies, and methods that younger people are being exposed to at school.