Response to the DSIT Women in Tech Taskforce call for evidence: ‘Building a future tech sector that works for everyone’.

Abstract

Women remain significantly underrepresented in the technology workforce. The cost of this underrepresentation is substantial for individuals and society. Higher Education (HE) is a critical stage in this pipeline where cultural norms are established and young women make lasting decisions about their relationship with technology, developing the confidence and sense of belonging that inform whether they enter and remain in the tech workforce. HE is vital to improving entry, progression, retention, and leadership for women in the tech sector.

This response draws multi-method intensive qualitative doctoral research (Li, forthcoming, 2026) examining women’s identity construction in computing education at UK research-intensive universities. Our research shows that interventions based solely on increasing access to computing and the tech sector are unlikely to succeed without addressing educational environments and the cultural norms of computing that shape everyday participation. Students’ engagement with computing is influenced by classroom interactions, assessment structures, teachers’ expectations, peer dynamics, and implicit norms. These dynamics shape how women students in computing position themselves in relation to the field and make career commitments. Understanding this foundation is essential. Engaging with education as a site of early identity formation and cultural reproduction offers a sustainable route to change. The evidence presented in this response highlights how targeted interventions in educational contexts can contribute directly to building a more inclusive, resilient, and diverse tech workforce.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Xiaohan Li: orcid.org/0000-0001-7799-0741

ORCID for Sarah Lewthwaite: orcid.org/0000-0003-4480-3705

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