Why Does the Ukrainian Economy Need More Female IT Workers? — A Special Project Powered by Google

«The recruiter who hired me for the current project in 2019 admitted that my LinkedIn profile initially seemed fake to her because she had not yet encountered any female candidates for the position of Strong Middle Developer,» says Yevgenia, Senior Python Developer at EchoUA.

Yevgenia graduated from university in 2013 but began working in her profession only in 2015 when she joined the newly established technical unit at the Armed Forces due to a lack of personnel.

We often hear about the growing number of women in Ukraine's IT sector. However, most of them occupy positions unrelated to technical skills. Even at the C-level, it's usually HR, marketing, or communications roles. Nonetheless, research, particularly by UNESCO, doesn't confirm any statistically significant difference in the mathematical abilities between women and men.

Global corporations are increasingly leaning towards hiring women. According to Statesman, in five tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft — women already account for 29% to 45%.

The gender ratio in the Ukrainian IT market

According to Lviv IT Cluster, the representation of women in IT companies at the end of 2022 was only 29%. Similarly, the outsourcing IT company GlobalLogic reported a threefold increase in the share of women in Ukrainian IT over the last 10 years, reaching 24% by August 2022. Thus, it's still premature to talk about equality, given that there are fewer women in IT companies compared to men. At GlobalLogic in Ukraine, as of August 2022, more than 1,760 women were employed (25% of all specialists).

Another major player, Sigma, mentioned in its commentary to SPEKA that by the end of February 2023, the company had 320 women in technical positions (24% of the total workforce), with the percentage remaining almost unchanged over the past two years. In 2021, Sigma employed 35% women.

Intellias reported that they employ 27.6% women in technical roles, with this figure showing an annual increase. Among female specialists involved in development, 17.9% are women. In managerial positions, the employment of women increased to 43.81% compared to 35.16% in 2021.

Svitla Systems, founded by a Ukrainian woman, has more than 15% of its technical specialists being women. In total, women constitute 23% of the Svitla team in Ukraine.

Within the technical department of SupportYourApp, founded by a Ukrainian woman, four women hold positions such as Business Analytics Specialist, QA Lead, Java Developer, and Analytics Manager. At the C-level, alongside the founder Daria Leshchenko, nine more women hold roles, including the CFO and Deputy Director. The company's female workforce stands at 44%, although this figure dropped by 5% over the past year (in 2021, it was 49%). Nonetheless, almost half of the employees are still women, marking the highest proportion among the IT companies with which SPEKA interacted.

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«Our company employs over 100 specialists, with women comprising 27% of all employees. Ten women hold technical positions, while the rest are in administration, sales, marketing, etc. In 2022, our active recruitment drive due to company expansion saw a proportional increase in the number of women. It's challenging to hire women in the cloud industry since roles like network administrators, system architects, and hardware engineers are more popular among men,» shared Volodymyr Belov, CEO of GigaCloud Ukraine.

These professions may be perceived as more male-dominated due to gender stereotypes. Girls are often considered less capable in exact sciences. However, the current situation is influenced by the full-scale war.

Victoria Prydatko, owner of the recruiting company VP Team, stated that IT companies are now more inclined to hire women as they can be sent on necessary business trips abroad.

Women in C-level positions and the gender gap in Ukrainian IT

SPEKA contacted eight major Ukrainian IT companies to explore the gender gap. While not all companies provided comments, at least five have women at the C-level, mainly in recruiting, communications, and marketing roles.

The CTO position in the largest Ukrainian IT companies is held by only one woman — Vira Tkachenko at MacPaw. However, the company did not provide SPEKA with a comment. SPEKA's observations align with the conclusions drawn by recruiters.

Kateryna Osadchuk, CEO of the Indigo Tech Recruiters agency, highlighted, «In 80% of cases, the CMO position in IT companies is held by men. There are four times fewer women than men in CEO positions within IT companies. When we examined the salaries of Ukrainian CTOs and received 45 responses, only one was from a female candidate.

In 2021, C-level women earned on average 40% less than men. This year's survey indicates a slight narrowing of the gap, now at 35%. However, I don't believe that employers offer more to men. Often, women undervalue their worth and ask for less. Nevertheless, there are numerous other factors contributing to salary differences that require deeper investigation.«

How Increased Involvement of Girls in IT Specialties Can Benefit the Ukrainian Economy

SPEKA consulted specialists from the Center for Economic Strategy (CES) who calculated the potential benefits to the Ukrainian economy from greater female participation in IT specialties and a reduced gender wage gap.

The CES explained that the demand for IT personnel in Ukraine is growing by 30% annually. However, the number of new programmers is nearly half of what is required. This shortfall could impede the development of the Ukrainian IT sector, the only export industry witnessing growth even during a full-scale war.

Would Ukrainian IT flourish with more women? Researchers are confident it would. Determining the net economic effect of having more women in IT is complex because an increase in female IT students means heightened competition among men for university places and in the job market. The CES analyzed the potential economic gain for the Ukrainian economy from a reduced wage gap between men and women.

*The gender pay gap in IT is estimated to be much smaller than in other industries (9% vs. 20%).

The researchers compared two scenarios:

Status Quo — where the number of entrants to computer majors increases, but the percentage of girls among them remains the same (20%).

Gender Equality — assuming that the increase in places in educational programs occurs concurrently with an increase in the share of girls in them from 20% to 50% by 2025.

According to analysts, the net gain from the difference between the two scenarios could reach up to $32.7 million during 2025-2030 if the proportion of girls in educational programs in IT aligns with the «Gender Equality» scenario. This highlights that involving more women in IT and reducing the gender gap is an effective way to further develop the country's economy.

How the State and Business Can Encourage Greater Female Involvement in IT

Ukrainian businesses are actively supporting their female IT specialists. For instance, Sigma Software initiated Femmegineering, a project aimed at supporting the female tech community.

Intellias has established a space for mutual support called the IntelliWomen Community. It includes 420 female specialists, with over 70% of Intellias employees being women. In 2021, Intellias became the first IT company in Ukraine to sign the Principles of Women's Empowerment, initiated by the UN Global Compact and UN Women.

However, these initiatives predominantly cater to women already involved in the tech community. The Center for Economic Strategy recommends several steps to encourage more girls to pursue IT education:

Businesses' involvement in promoting IT education among women has yielded tangible results.

For instance, during the 15 years of operation of the Polish organization Perspektywy Women in Tech, which supports women in science, innovation, and technology, 300,000 school graduates have participated, leading to a 10% increase in the share of women in technical universities.

Ukraine requires a similar policy to exponentially expand the list of Ukrainian female founders, CEOs, CTOs, and successful developers.