Women under-represented in CIO, tech roles

CIOs see benefit of hiring more women.

Over half of CIOs think bringing women into their technology organisation would improve IT's relationship with the business but many IT shops remain male-only, according to recruitment firm Harvey Nash.

More than one in three CIOs globally reported there not being any women in IT management roles in their organisation, and 24 percent said there were no women in their technical teams, the Harvey Nash 2012 CIO Survey found.

In Australia, 27 percent of Australian CIOs reported having no women in IT management roles, according to a report by The Australian.

About 45 percent of CIOs surveyed worldwide reported that women made up "about one quarter" of their technical teams. A further 20 percent said half of their technical staff were women.

Women tended to be better represented in "non-technical" teams, the survey found. It described these as including "business analysis and training".

Six percent of CIOs surveyed had non-technical teams "almost exclusively made up of women". Over a third of CIOs said half of the make-up of non-technical teams were women.

"Over half of CIOs (51 percent) think relationships between IT and the business improve by hiring more women, and 48 percent believe it enhances team cohesion and morale," an executive summary of the findings noted.

"However, the vast majority of CIOs think there is no impact on strategy (82 percent) and technical nous (86 percent) from hiring more women into IT."

The survey respondents were 93 percent male, Harvey Nash noted.