Join our Insight Session
Women in Tech: From Conversation to Action
Wednesday 28 October 2026
12 - 1pm
Online via Microsoft Teams
The technology sector continues to offer exciting opportunities for people to build rewarding and varied careers. Yet, despite progress, women remain underrepresented across many areas of technology.
Creating a more diverse technology workforce isn't simply about attracting more women into the sector. It's also about understanding the barriers they can face, creating opportunities to progress and ensuring organisations provide the right environment for women to build long-term careers.
At Leep Talent, we've been exploring these areas through our Women in Tech Insight Sessions, bringing together employers and industry professionals to share experiences, challenges and ideas for creating positive change.
What are the barriers women in technology are facing?
There isn't one single reason why women remain underrepresented in technology.
Barriers can exist at different stages of a person's career, from entering the sector through to progression into senior and leadership positions.
Some of the challenges commonly discussed include:
- Limited awareness of technology careers: Technology offers far more career paths than coding and software development alone, but these opportunities aren't always visible and clear to people considering their career options.
- Access to opportunities: Education, experience, professional networks and access to development opportunities can all influence someone's ability to enter and progress within the technology sector.
- Representation and role models: Seeing women represented across different technology roles and at senior levels can help demonstrate that there is a place for women to build successful careers in the industry… and sadly this isn’t visible in many tech organisations.
- Workplace culture and inclusion: Creating an environment where people feel supported, valued and able to contribute is an important part of retaining diverse talent.
- Career progression: Attracting women into technology is only part of the challenge. Organisations also need to consider how they support development, progression and leadership opportunities via clear guidance and framework.
These challenges aren't necessarily experienced by every woman in the same way, but recognising where barriers may exist is an important starting point.
Supporting women in tech goes beyond recruitment
One of the key themes from our Women in Tech conversations is the importance of looking beyond attraction and recruitment.
While encouraging more women to consider careers in technology is important, organisations also need to think about what happens once someone joins.
Employers should ask themselves:
- How are women supported to develop their skills?
- Are development opportunities accessible?
- Can employees see clear routes for progression? And more importantly, do they understand the steps involved?
- Are managers equipped to support different career journeys?
- Are organisations measuring whether their initiatives are making a difference?
Taking this broader approach can help organisations think about the whole employee journey, rather than treating diversity as a recruitment challenge alone.
Creating opportunities for women to progress
Professional development can play an important role in helping people progress their careers.
This could include formal training and qualifications, mentoring, access to projects, leadership development or simply creating opportunities for employees to build experience in new areas.
For employers, it's worth considering whether development opportunities are reaching a diverse range of employees and whether people understand what opportunities are available to them.
For individuals, building confidence, developing new skills and understanding where their experience could take them can also help open new career opportunities.
From conversation to action
Talking about the challenges facing women in technology is important, but meaningful change requires organisations to consider what they can do differently.
That's the focus of our next Women in Tech Insight Session: From Conversation to Action, taking place on Wednesday 28 October, 12-1pm via Microsoft Teams.
We'll explore four key areas:
Review: Where are we now, and what can we learn from the progress and challenges we've seen so far?
Empower: How can organisations create more opportunities for women to develop, progress and take the next step in their careers?
Enable: What practical support, development and workplace changes can help women thrive in technology?
Measure: How can organisations understand whether their actions are making a meaningful difference?
The session will bring together different perspectives to continue the conversation around women in technology, career progression, inclusion and the role employers can play in creating lasting change.
Join the conversation
Whether you're an employer, HR or People professional, technology leader, working in tech yourself, or simply interested in creating greater opportunities for women in the sector, we'd love you to join us.