The latest government workforce data, as of the end of December 2022, provides a useful snapshot of gender equity throughout the STEM sector. The overall percentage of women that make up the core STEM workforce is currently 26.3%.
Notably, just under half of the workforce (48.9%) of Science Professionals are female. Close to a third of Science and Engineering technicians are female (29.5%), whilst only 12.4% of Engineering Professionals are female. Whilst managerial roles within the science, engineering and technology industries remain overwhelmingly male-dominated, recent workforce data shows a broadly positive trend; women now account for 18.1% of SET Managers.
In the IT sector, the latest figures show that women account for 18.8% of IT Professionals and 21.9% of IT Technicians.
WISE will continue to update these headline figures on a quarterly basis. A more in-depth WISE analysis of this data – looking at trends across the years – will be released in September 2023.
A note on data sources
Core STEM includes science, engineering, and information and communications technology. Health occupations and skilled trades are not included within the scope of core STEM.
A full list of occupations included in core STEM can be found in the below document detailing all the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes.
This analysis has been produced based on government figures from the Annual Population Survey (APS). More information on the Annual Population Survey can be found here.