Women in tech: how to switch careers into tech
The most useful fact about women in UK technology is not the one everybody quotes. It is this: only 5% of female IT specialists hold an IT degree, against 10% of men, while 82% of them hold a higher education qualification of some kind. That comes from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, in its Gender Diversity in the Tech Sector Report 2025, using Labour Force Survey data for 2024.
Read it again, because it reframes the whole question. The typical woman working in UK tech did not study computing. She arrived from somewhere else. A decision to switch career into tech is not the exception in this industry, it is the normal route, and the women already doing the job mostly took it.
What follows is how to make that switch deliberately rather than hopefully: which doors open first, what employers actually assess, and how to turn the career you already have into evidence.
The numbers worth planning around
BCS counted 441,000 female IT specialists in the UK in 2024, about 22% of all IT specialists, up one percentage point on the previous year. Women were 49% of everyone in work, so the shortfall is roughly half a million people.
That 22% is an average, and the average is the least useful number in the set. Across the 2020 to 2024 period, BCS found representation ranged from around 6% of IT engineers to about 34% of IT project and programme managers, 34% of web designers and developers, and 30% of IT operations technicians. If you are choosing where to aim, the difference between 6% and 34% is the difference between being the only woman in the room and being one of several.
Pay is worth going in with your eyes open about. Our own reading of the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for April 2025 puts the median full-time gender pay gap in information and communication at 9.0%, and at 12.9% in computer programming, consultancy and related activities, against 6.9% across all industries. BCS found female IT specialists earned a median £23 an hour in 2024, 12% below men in IT roles. Tech pays well. It does not pay equally, and we cover why in closing the UK tech gender gap.
Switch career into tech through the door that is already open
The most common mistake in a tech career change is aiming at the hardest entry point because it sounds the most like tech.
Software engineering is the narrowest door, both in representation and in the amount of unpaid preparation it demands before anyone will interview you. Meanwhile project and programme management, delivery, business analysis, data analysis, quality assurance, technical support, product, and design all sit inside technology, pay technology salaries, and hire people with exactly the transferable skills most career changers already have.
This is not a lesser route. Plenty of women move into engineering later from those roles, with an employer paying for the learning and a real codebase to learn on. Starting where you will be hired is faster than starting where you would like to have started. Our guide to careers for women in technology, roles, pay and how to start breaks down what each of those roles actually involves day to day.
Build evidence, not a certificate
Given that only 5% of female IT specialists hold an IT degree, the question is not which qualification opens the industry. It is what counts as proof.
Three routes carry real weight in the UK. Apprenticeships, including degree apprenticeships, which pay you while you qualify and are open to career changers rather than only school leavers. Skills Bootcamps, which are free courses of up to 16 weeks for adults aged 19 and over in England, running from level 2 to level 5, with a job interview guaranteed at the end. And internal moves, which are the quietest and often the fastest route of all, because your current employer already knows you can do a job.
Whichever you take, the thing that converts it into an offer is a small body of finished work. One analysis someone acted on, one automation that saved a real team real hours, one project you delivered end to end. Employers hiring career changers are looking for evidence that you can finish things in a technical context. A certificate says you attended. A finished piece of work says you can do it.
Translate the career you already have
Career changers routinely undersell themselves at exactly the wrong moment, describing what they are leaving as unrelated when it is the strongest part of the application.
Do the translation explicitly. If you managed a clinical rota, you managed a scheduling system under constraint. If you ran a retail floor, you ran operations, stock data and people. If you taught, you can explain difficult things to people who do not share your vocabulary, which is most of what a technical role actually asks. Write the equivalence out in plain English rather than leaving the interviewer to guess, because they will not guess.
Then choose a format that carries it. A chronological CV is poor at this. It turns a career change into a discontinuity and a career break into a gap, and neither is the point. Our guide to writing a profile that shows your potential covers how to lead with capability instead, and why CVs flatten women explains why the document works against you here.
Choose the employer as carefully as the role
Where you land first matters more than the title you land with, because a decision to switch career into tech gives you one early environment to learn in.
Check the published pay gap figures on the government service at gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk, and read the top pay quartile rather than the headline. Look for women in technical leadership at more than one level, which tells you people stayed and were promoted. Ask how many people in the team came in through a conversion route, and ask it as a real question, because an employer that hires career changers routinely will have names ready.
Two more signals. BCS found female IT specialists were more than four times as likely as men to work part time, 13% against 3%, in a sector where just 6% of IT specialists work part time at all, so an employer that has made senior part time or compressed roles work has solved something most of the industry has not attempted. And ask what onboarding looks like for someone without a computing background. If you want the comparison across employers, see the best UK technology companies for women, and for the people around you once you arrive, women in tech communities worth joining in the UK.
Frequently asked questions
How do I switch career into tech in the UK with no experience?
Aim at the roles that hire career changers first, such as delivery, business analysis, data analysis, quality assurance and technical support. Use an apprenticeship, a Skills Bootcamp or an internal move to get paid experience, and build one finished piece of work as proof.
Do I need a computing degree to work in tech?
No, and most women in UK tech roles do not have one. BCS found just 5% of female IT specialists hold an IT degree, against 10% of men, while 82% hold a higher education qualification of some kind. Employers hiring career changers assess demonstrable skills.
Which tech roles are most open to women in the UK?
Across 2020 to 2024, BCS found women made up around 34% of IT project and programme managers and web designers and developers, and about 30% of IT operations technicians, compared with roughly 6% of IT engineers.
Is it too late to move into tech in my forties?
No. Skills Bootcamps are open to adults aged 19 and over, including people returning after a break, and apprenticeships have no upper age limit. Sector experience is an advantage in technology roles that serve that sector, not a disadvantage.
Join the RecruitHer waitlist, be seen for your full potential, not flattened into a CV.
This is educational information, not careers advice tailored to you. Training routes, eligibility and funding can change and vary across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Check current eligibility on GOV.UK, and look up any employer on the official gender pay gap service.
Last reviewed: September 2026