More and more women are employed in the Hungarian IT profession, but their share is still well below the EU average – according to IVSZ – Association for the Digital Economy background research. The main reason for this is that there are not enough female employees applying for IT jobs and training at home – this is what needs to change the most. More diverse IT teams would also benefit Hungarian companies from an economic point of view, so they are already happy to employ female digital professionals

The IVSZ – Association for the Digital Economy has recently had two disadvantages in some respects in IT jobs. The results of research on the use of women over the age of 50 can be found at this link, and the findings on women digital professionals are now being published by the organization.

According to Eurostat figures, in 2017 and 2018. In Hungary, the proportion of women in the ICT specialist profession was the lowest in Hungary: 9 percent in 2017 and 8.6 percent in 2018. According to EU statistics, the number of women IT specialists increased to 10.6 per cent by 2019. With this, we managed to overtake the Czech Republic among the EU countries in this field.

IT manager is still rare, women are often often chosen as managers

The main finding of the research is that IT is still considered a masculine profession in Hungary: the proportion of women IT managers is significantly lower than in the EU Member States. It is a more common practice to choose women as financial, human resources or marketing managers in companies with an infocommunication profile as well.

Fortunately, the use of female IT specialists and digital specialists at lower levels than their top managers is already much more accepted. The latter name includes, in addition to traditional programmers and system operators, positions in a broader sense that require advanced digital skills, such as IT project manager or project manager.

“The fact that the proportion of women IT professionals in Hungary is On the one hand, due to the predominance of men, Hungarian IT teams are less diverse, and on the other hand, more women would choose the IT career, which would help reduce the significant shortage of professionals in the sector, thus promoting the development of the Hungarian economy. It would help the current situation if the IT professions were presented to students as an attractive option for girls as well, as the integration of women is no longer a challenge for Hungarian IT companies, but finding female developers is a must, “said dr. Balázs Vinnai, President of IVSZ

There are already positive signs in education

The low employment rate of women digital professionals is mainly the result that, for the time being, a low proportion of Hungarian women participate in IT trainings. According to the 2019 data of the Office of Education, between 2009 and 2014, the proportion of women with a degree in IT training was only 10 percent. In comparison, the proportion of women has risen to around 20% since 2015.

The so-called bootcamp training sites, which specialize in intensive, short-cycle IT training, have also achieved results, with an even higher 25% of those who complete them. proportion of women according to the results of the BSZCamp audit of IVSZ 2020.

In Hungary, the proportion of 15-year-old women who intend to work in an ICT job by the age of 30 is slightly higher than the EU average. However, this ratio is still significantly lower than that of men of the same age. Program your future! project, in which IVSZ participates as a professional consortium partner alongside ITM and KIFÜ, one of the main objectives is to get more girls to choose an IT career.

“10-15 years ago it was rare to meet women leaders in In the IT sector, it was more of a men’s profession: at that time, I myself had significantly higher expectations as a career woman in the profession, even though I had the necessary IT skills. In my experience, more and more young women are choosing an IT profession and acquiring special knowledge and professional qualifications. Today, the diversity of professional teams, both in terms of generations and gender ratios, is gaining more and more focus, and in many cases today they consciously choose female employees for a given position female employees within the company form a professional community, build value-creating professional programs. This is also the case in my current job, “said Krisztina Neumann-Toró, Senior Consultant at IFUA Horváth & Partners.

The pay gap between male and female IT professionals is too large

The unadjusted gender pay gap is higher than the EU average (18 per cent) in Hungary, 20.3 per cent according to Eurostat statistics for 2018, however, with this result Hungary is still in the middle – nine There is an even larger gender pay gap in the EU, and the second largest gender pay gap in the ICT sector in Hungary, only higher in the academic field

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