With STEM Day on the way, these are the best countries for women in tech

A global day to celebrate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is on the way on 8 November.

While the intended purpose of the day is to inspire students to get excited about STEM and its career paths, it’s also an opportunity to shine a light on how those efforts are going within the workplace.

In the UK, women’s representation in STEM is hovering at about 30 per cent overall. That figure is noticeably lower in particular fields such as computer science where women represent only 23 per cent, and in engineering and technology where there is only a 21 per cent female participation rate.

In cybersecurity, the UK government reports that just 17 per cent of the UK’s cybersecurity workforce are female, with women accounting for 12 per cent of senior roles. This, the report states is “is consistent with previous years”.

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Fintech represents its own challenges for female participation. “UK fintechs are less gender-diverse than the broader financial services sector, with women making up 28 per cent of the fintech workforce compared to 44 per cent in financial services at large,” says a report from EY and Innovate Finance.

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The research also found that “gender inequality and unfair treatment of women remain far too prevalent” in the sector. This, EY says, is evidenced by a significant gender pay gap, persistent barriers to career progression, a lack of investment in female founders as well as a lack of visibility among female leaders.

Additionally, 27 per cent of women said they’d experienced a lack of recognition of their contributions, with 25 per cent saying there was a lack of transparency in promotion and progression.

Best countries to develop a STEM career

Given that, it is timely that new research from cloud cost optimisation platform, CloudZero, has identified the best countries for women to pursue careers in STEM.

The company analysed data from 38 OECD countries to examine the percentage of women in STEM roles and education, their opportunities, the gender wage gap, and the average female salary.

The UK does well in terms of its percentage of female STEM graduates at 38 per cent. However, Luxembourg comes out on top. That’s thanks to the fact its gender pay gap is 0.4 per cent and it offers high average wages of around £59,970.

Iceland is second on the ranking. With a 45 per cent female participation rate in STEM jobs, 35 per cent of its female graduates are in STEM areas and its average female wage is £60,800.

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The US comes in third, with high average wages, and good representation for women in both STEM roles and degrees. However, the pay gap in the United States is 17 per cent. Belgium and Denmark round out the top five best cities for women in STEM, with wage gaps of one per cent and six per cent, respectively.

UK lags behind

So why does the UK not figure? Research from SRG in collaboration with New Scientist found that in the UK, women in STEM are earning much less than their male counterparts; the pay gap in 2024 is 19 per cent, or £12,000 on average.

In 2023 that gap was only 13 per cent, so things are disimproving. The research also identified that the pay gap in Europe has increased three per cent between 2023 and 2024, to 14 per cent, too.

The USA has bucked a downward trend, reducing its gender pay gap reduction from 13 per cent in 2023 to eight per cent in 2024, but this still represents a lot of lost income.

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Emma Brown, strategic accounts director at SRG in the UK, says that “This inequality is not acceptable, particularly when we are trying so hard to attract women into STEM. It speaks volumes.”

Solutions need to start early, with encouragement to increase adoption of STEM subjects in schools, which then trickles down into university course choices, and on into the workforce. And, EY’s report says: “More equitable compensation will help fintechs improve their access to female talent”.

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Article written by Kirstie McDermott at Amply.