Marking International Women’s Day 2019, a study has explored labour market data from the Office of National Statistics to reveal where new opportunities are opening up for women and where potential new career paths may exist.
Five of the ten fastest growing industries for women were also found in the top ten industries for closing the gender diversity gap, meaning they have seen a substantial rise in the percentage of women in their total workforce across the last 20 years.
The top ten fastest growing industries for women are:
- Transport support- up 340 per cent
- Computer programming – up 196.3 per cent
- Head office management – up 191.2 per cent
- Security and investigation – up 181.25 per cent
- Motoring industry – up 173.68 per cent
- Land transport – 172.97 per cent
- Information services – up 146.15 per cent
- Shipping – up 133.33 per cent
- Support for finance and insurance – up 124.18 per cent
- Manufacture of fuel – up 100 per cent
The data highlights that progress is being made for women in the STEM fields, with computer programming demonstrating the second highest growth rate for women of all industries in the UK.
Despite this, if the current rate of change in the gender diversity gap is maintained, it will be another 60 years before numbers of women in computer programming match those of men.
Women now make up 29.89 per cent of the computer programming workforce, that’s an increase of 6.34 per cent since 1998. To get to 50 per cent of the workforce at the same rate will take another six decades.
Head of HR at Instantprint, Vicki Russell, says about the research they commissioned: “This data provides up-to-date insight into new career opportunities for women. We undertook the analysis to highlight to those establishing a career or starting out on the road to developing their own business where exciting opportunities exist.
“The results highlight the changing face of women in the workplace, and also indicate where more needs to be done to balance gender in the UK’s workforce. This should prompt companies to assess their own gender diversity gaps, and consider how they can improve, while also highlighting to women where they can look to for expanding industries to work in.”