CW+ Premium Content/CW Middle East

Middle East businesses are failing to recruit more women, despite an increasing need for IT skills in the region as the economy diversifies – and a high level of reticence on the subject among IT professionals in the region is not helping matters. According to Computer Weekly’s annual Salary Survey for 2019 in the Middle East, of which 14% of respondents were women, 27% of businesses have no women in their IT departments. Furthermore, the survey revealed that only about 10% of IT departments in the Middle East region are made up of 40% or more women. This shows a tiny improvement on the same survey for 2017, which revealed that just under 30% of respondents said there were no women in their IT department, and only 9% said more than 40% of their organisation’s IT staff were women. Worryingly, the 2019 survey revealed that only about 30% of businesses have a plan in place to balance up the make-up of their IT team between men and women. Just more than 20% said they did not have such a plan in place, and about 48% were reticent. ...