On November 14th, 2018 at the House of Commons Inclusive Boards invited the leaders representing over 100 tech firms to celebrate the launch of The Inclusive Tech Alliance. Inclusive Tech Alliance (ITA) is a membership body focused on supporting efforts to improve diversity within the UK Tech sector. It is a collaboration with the Financial Times, who produced a special report into ethnic diversity in tech on the same day.
Ground breaking report highlights the current lack of diversity within the tech sector senior leadership. After examining the data from 500 of the UK’s biggest tech firms and collecting the demographic information of 1,882 executives and a further 1,169 board members, the findings revealed a significant lack of senior women across the sector. Furthermore, analysis showed that black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders are strongly underrepresented compared to the wider population. Some key facts from the report:
- Women make up just 12.6% of board members and 16.6% of senior executives in the top tech firms, equivalent to 14.6% female representation across all senior levels in tech.
- Only 8.5% of senior leaders in the sector were from a black, Asian, minority ethnic (BAME) background.
- Almost two-thirds (65%) of boards in the top tech firms had no female directors. Over two-fifths of executive teams in the top tech firms had no female representation.
- More than a third (35%) of board members and more over a quarter (26%) of senior executives in the top tech firms attended Oxford or Cambridge (Oxbridge) universities compared to just 1% of the population.
On the same day Inclusive Boards and its partner Financial Times also released the list of top 100 most influential Black, Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders in tech. Those featured in the top 100 (IB 100) include senior leaders from LinkedIn, IBM, Twitter, FinTech firms and more.
