Workforce Data – September 2025
The UK’s workforce has reached an all-time high of 48% women, a proportion which has been steadily increasing. Here, we’ll look at the data on women in the Core STEM roles in more detail.
Core STEM
- Over 2025, the proportion of women in Core STEM roles remained stable – reaching an all-time high of 27.8% in June but dropping back to 27.2% by September.
- We now have over 1.4 million women working in Core STEM roles across the UK, projected to reach 1.7 million women by 2030 following current trends.
- Despite fluctuations in recent years, we are still projected to reach 30% women in Core STEM by 2030 if progress continues at the current rate.
Percentage of women in the core STEM workforce
SET (Science, Engineering and Technology) managers
- SET Managers has seen the largest drop in percentage of women over the past year – from 20% in December 2024, down to 18.2% in September 2025.
- This is mainly driven by a fall in the proportion of production managers and directors in construction and manufacturing.
- Production managers and directors in mining and energy has grown from 18% in December 2024 to 26% in September 2025, more than doubling in number.
Science professionals
- The percentage of women science professionals has fluctuated slightly over 2025, but remains stable – from 47.5% in December 2024, to 47.9% in September 2025.
- Biological scientists reached 50% in September 2025, just behind Biochemists and biomedical scientists at 59%.
- Chemical and physical scientists lag further behind at 35% and 33% respectively.
Science and engineering technicians
- Science and engineering technicians have seen the largest increase in the percentage of women over the period, from 26% in December 2024 to 28.4% in September 2025.
- There are now over 76,000 women science and engineering technicians, the highest since December 2021, with laboratory technicians representing 45% of these.
Engineering professionals
- Proportions of women engineering professionals has increased from 10.6% in December 2024 to 11.1% in September 2025.
- This represents an additional 4,500 women, totalling over 63,000 women engineering professionals.
- This proportion remains in recovery, after reaching an all-time high of 15.4% in September 2022.
- Electrical engineers are falling shortest here at only 3% women, following by production and process engineers at 7%.
IT professionals
- The proportion of women IT professionals has remained stable at 20.2%, with numbers increasing by just 2,100.
- With over 316,000 women IT professionals, this category represents by far the largest proportion of women in STEM roles.
- IT quality and testing professionals are leading the way with 33.7%, followed by IT project managers at 31.7%.
IT technicians
- The proportion of women IT technicians now sits at 24.5%, down from 25% in December 2024.
- The number of women IT technicians has dropped down to 75,000.
- Database administrators and web content technicians lead here with 44.8% women.
Proportion of women and men across workforce and core STEM
Percentage of women in STEM professions (Dec 24 – Sep 25)
All workforce data has been analysed and interpreted using Nomis official census and labour market statistics.
Core STEM includes science, engineering, and information and communications technology. Health occupations and skilled trades are not included within the scope of core STEM.