Despite the obvious need for skilled professionals in the sector, only 19% of the IT and telecommunications workforce is female. This percentage is also heavily weighted by the public sector and the situation does not appear likely to change soon, with only 10% of A Level Computer Studies students being women.
But SICL is proof that women and a career in IT mix perfectly well. The ratio of female employees is unusually high in the commercial sector and SICL’s focus on employee participation – the business is an Investors in People exemplar – makes it a popular place to work and staff retention rates are better than the industry average.
Shirley Firth, SICL's Financial Director, is keen to attract more women to the business.
“We would love more women to apply for technical roles with us". says Shirley, "They have the skills and the abilities to do the work well. Plus, balance in gender within the business brings added advantages as women bring a different perspective to our teams on how we work.”
Samantha Paylor, who graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in Summer 2009 joined SICL recently providing technical support and project work to and for customers. Sam believes a technical role in IT is well suited to the talents and qualities usually associated with women.
Sam says: “I became interested in IT through computing lessons at school. I found that I could pick it up quite easily and became generally interested in computing. I then decided that this is the career path that I wanted to follow due to the wide variety and nature of the industry.”
Carrie Williams is another example of an SICL employee who is making a success of an IT career. Carrie joined SICL in 2006 in a business development role. Nine months later, her passion for conservation led to her moving to Fiji to work on an ocean ecology project. When she came back to the UK two years ago, she took up SICL’s standing offer to rejoin the business, re-trained as a Project Manager and recently been promoted to a Project Control Manager responsible for all Project Managers in the business.
Carrie says: “It’s challenging but women generally are good Technical Project Managers. We are good planners, think logically and are good communicators. These skills are ideal for a project management role in IT.”
Shirley, who spent a period of her career in manufacturing, says the predominance of men in the profession should not act as a bar to women. “In my experience IT is a more male dominated industry than manufacturing. We can change that though, as our business is demonstrating.”
ShIrley adds “I would like to see schools and colleges do more to encourage women to explore technology as a career because there’s absolutely no reason why they should not be able to succeed in technical roles."