Sionic has been developing technical engineering experts since 2003 when we launched our first Expert Engineer Programme (EEP). Over 3000 people from around the world have since graduated from our programme across the financial services industry. Unfortunately, as you would anticipate, the majority of these programmes were heavily male-dominated and sadly, recent research completed by Tech Nation shows that only 26% of technical roles are occupied by women.
This is a topic we are keen to explore, particularly to understand how we can support businesses to attract, retain and develop more women in technical roles. To support this, we recently completed a gender review based on extensive insights gained working within the technology environment in the finance sector over the last 20 years. We will soon be publishing our Women in Technology article, outlining our findings and how our Equal 4 All framework is helping businesses create strategies to address the imbalance.
Our gender review clearly demonstrates that businesses that proactively focus and implement an Equal 4 All strategy are more likely to increase and retain the number of women in technical roles and help establish a scalable, sustainable equitable environment. Our findings show that over a 5-year period, the number of women completing our EEP has increased from 10% to 22%, with a forecasted further increase to 30% by 2027.
There is still much more to be done to encourage more women into technical career pathways. This is well-researched and has been a key focus for many for several years. However, our interest lies in the ongoing development of these women and their retention in the industry by helping businesses address some of the many specific challenges women face within the workplace. Our Equal 4 All framework enables businesses to question and consider the environment they are creating to support a diverse and equitable environment, leading to the implementation of pragmatic strategies, behaviours and mindsets to proactively begin addressing equity imbalance across the enterprise. The framework focuses on four key areas:
- Setting the vision and tone
- Implementing new working practices
- Enhances learning and development
- Evaluate and continuously improve
If you want to learn more about how to create an equitable environment and a culture that proactively supports the development of women in tech, look out for the October edition of our newsletter. In this edition we will be sharing our main article on Women in Tech, providing more highlights from our gender review research, and doing a deeper dive into our Equal 4 All framework to help you create an equitable environment.
Read previous editions of our Newsletter here.