Women in Tech Statistics 2026: 15 Years of BLS Data Show Women Still Hold About 1 in 4 U.S. Tech Jobs
Women in tech statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show women held 27.5% of U.S. computer and mathematical jobs in 2025, up from 25.0% in 2011 and far below their 47.1% share of all jobs. We joined 15 years of annual BLS survey tables into one series. The share is edging up by about a tenth of a point a year, and slipped to 26.0% in early 2026.
Is the share of women in tech rising, flat, or falling?
We tested each occupation two ways: the change between the 2011 to 2013 and 2023 to 2025 averages (three-year averages damp the survey’s year-to-year noise), and a straight-line trend through all 15 years. An occupation counts as rising or falling only if the trend is statistically clear and the change is at least 2 points.
Women’s share of employment by computer occupation, 2011 to 2025
Each bar is one year, scaled 0% to 60%. The dotted line is women’s share of all U.S. jobs (about 47%). Red dashed lines mark 2020, when new occupation codes split software QA testers out of software developers and added database architects. Empty years: not published (fewer than 50,000 employed) or occupation not defined.
The aggregate is the clearest case of slow movement. Women were 25.0% of computer and mathematical workers in 2011, 25.8% in 2019 and 27.5% in 2025, the highest in the series. The trend is real (it rises by 0.12 points a year) but small: at that pace, it would take about 157 years to reach women’s 47.1% share of the whole workforce.
Part of the recent gain is a reclassification. Since 2020, data scientists are coded to “other mathematical science occupations,” a group that grew to 486,000 workers by 2025 with 41.8% women. Excluding that group, women’s share of the rest of the computer and math workforce went from 25.0% in 2020 to 26.4% in 2025, against 25.2% to 27.5% including it.
2026 so far: a step back
Monthly survey data for 2026 point the other way. From January to September 2026, women averaged 1,780,000 of 6.84 million computer and mathematical workers, a 26.0% share, down from 27.4% in the same months of 2025. Women’s employment in these occupations fell by about 63,000 while men’s rose by 169,000. The quarterly series shows the same level (Q1 25.6%, Q2 26.6%, Q3 25.9%). Monthly occupation estimates are noisy, so one partial year is not a trend, but it erases the 2025 high.
Women in these jobs are also more likely to be out of work: their unemployment rate averaged 3.8% from January to September 2026, against 3.2% for men. Our tracker of tech layoffs from WARN notices shows how much cutting tech employers have announced this year.
Fifteen years, occupation by occupation
Women’s share, 2011 to 2013 average vs 2023 to 2025 average
Open circle: 2011 to 2013 average (for information security analysts, the earliest three published years, because BLS withheld a year). Filled circle: 2023 to 2025 average. Number: change in percentage points. Software developers and database staff span the 2020 code change. The data scientist group is excluded because it exists only from 2020.
Software developers are the biggest computer occupation, with 2.25 million workers in 2025, and the share of women among them has barely moved: 19.0% in 2011, 20.3% in 2025, a trend of 0.09 points a year. The pre-2020 figures include software testers, a more female group now counted separately, so the like-for-like share for developers alone may have risen slightly, but it has stayed close to one in five.
Computer systems analysts are the exception: women’s share rose from 33.2% to 41.6% between the two periods and reached 44.0% in 2025, the closest any large computer occupation comes to parity. Computer programmers moved the other way, falling from 22.1% to 19.3% while the occupation lost jobs (459,000 in 2011, 381,000 in 2025).
For MSP-type roles the picture is static. Computer support specialists were 27.5% women in 2011 to 2013 and 27.4% in 2023 to 2025. Network and computer systems administrators averaged 17.3%, and IT managers 27.6%.
Women in cybersecurity
Information security analysts are the BLS occupation closest to cybersecurity. Women were 15.9% of them in 2025, roughly 41,000 of 261,000 workers. The single-year figure jumps around (from 11.4% to 24.9% since 2014) because the occupation is small in the survey, so the three-year average of 18.0% for 2023 to 2025 is the better number. The earliest three published years (2012 to 2015, with gaps where BLS withheld the figure) averaged 17.6%, and the straight-line trend is not statistically clear.
That is below industry survey estimates. ISC2’s workforce study found women made up 22% of security teams on average worldwide and 19.2% in the U.S. The occupation has grown to 3.7 times its 2015 size of 70,000, and BLS expects more growth (see our IT and cybersecurity jobs outlook), but women’s share has not grown with it. Too few women work full time in the role for BLS to publish their median earnings.
The pay gap in tech
Women working full time in computer and mathematical occupations had median weekly earnings of $1,828 in 2025, against $2,138 for men: 85.5% of men’s pay, or about $16,120 less over 52 weeks. Across all occupations, women earned 82.1% of men’s median. In 2011 the computer and math figure was 82.2%; since then it has swung between 79.6% and 87.3% with no clear trend (a fitted slope of +0.11 points a year, not statistically clear), so the 2025 figure may partly be survey noise. Among software developers the gap is smaller: women earned $2,383 a week against $2,523 for men (94%).
Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, BLS CPS annual averages table 39, 2025. Occupations shown where BLS publishes a median for women (at least 50,000 women employed full time). Medians do not control for experience, hours beyond full time, or specialty.
| Year | Computer and math, men | Computer and math, women | Women as % of men | All jobs, men | All jobs, women | Women as % of men |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $2,138 | $1,828 | 85.5% | $1,326 | $1,089 | 82.1% |
| 2024 | $2,043 | $1,640 | 80.3% | $1,261 | $1,043 | 82.7% |
| 2023 | $1,976 | $1,628 | 82.4% | $1,202 | $1,005 | 83.6% |
| 2022 | $1,884 | $1,546 | 82.1% | $1,154 | $958 | 83.0% |
| 2021 | $1,742 | $1,499 | 86.1% | $1,097 | $912 | 83.1% |
| 2020 | $1,738 | $1,423 | 81.9% | $1,082 | $891 | 82.3% |
| 2019 | $1,658 | $1,353 | 81.6% | $1,007 | $821 | 81.5% |
| 2018 | $1,604 | $1,345 | 83.9% | $973 | $789 | 81.1% |
| 2017 | $1,552 | $1,235 | 79.6% | $941 | $770 | 81.8% |
| 2016 | $1,518 | $1,325 | 87.3% | $915 | $749 | 81.9% |
| 2015 | $1,503 | $1,245 | 82.8% | $895 | $726 | 81.1% |
| 2014 | $1,435 | $1,165 | 81.2% | $871 | $719 | 82.5% |
| 2013 | $1,452 | $1,174 | 80.9% | $860 | $706 | 82.1% |
| 2012 | $1,414 | $1,146 | 81.0% | $854 | $691 | 80.9% |
| 2011 | $1,369 | $1,126 | 82.2% | $832 | $684 | 82.2% |
Full table: women’s share by occupation and year
| Occupation | 2011 | 2013 | 2015 | 2017 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Employed 2025 | Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All computer and math jobs | 25.0 | 26.1 | 24.7 | 25.5 | 25.8 | 25.2 | 26.2 | 26.7 | 26.9 | 26.4 | 27.5 | 6,711K | Edging up |
| Computer systems analysts | 33.9 | 34.9 | 34.2 | 38.9 | 40.1 | 35.6 | 37.5 | 38.7 | 37.8 | 43.1 | 44.0 | 569K | Rising |
| Data scientists and other math | 37.8 | 49.2 | 43.0 | 50.7 | 40.9 | 41.8 | 486K | Too new | |||||
| Database admins and architects | 37.3 | 37.4 | 38.0 | 40.6 | 30.2 | 28.8 | 35.0 | 38.8 | 30.8 | 28.9 | 36.3 | 148K | Flat |
| Computer support specialists | 26.3 | 29.0 | 26.4 | 27.1 | 26.4 | 25.9 | 23.8 | 25.8 | 26.2 | 26.9 | 29.1 | 677K | Flat |
| IT managers | 25.3 | 28.6 | 27.2 | 28.6 | 28.7 | 26.6 | 26.7 | 26.4 | 27.7 | 30.1 | 25.1 | 646K | Flat |
| Software developers | 19.0 | 19.7 | 17.9 | 18.7 | 18.7 | 19.4 | 19.7 | 21.5 | 20.2 | 20.3 | 20.3 | 2,254K | Edging up |
| Computer programmers | 20.8 | 23.0 | 21.0 | 21.2 | 20.3 | 21.1 | 19.5 | 22.1 | 21.5 | 17.8 | 18.5 | 381K | Falling |
| Network and systems admins | 22.8 | 17.3 | 15.9 | 23.5 | 26.1 | 19.8 | 17.2 | 19.8 | 16.7 | 17.1 | 18.2 | 154K | Flat |
| Information security analysts | 19.7 | 20.2 | 17.1 | 11.4 | 18.2 | 18.0 | 19.3 | 18.9 | 15.9 | 261K | Flat | ||
| Computer network architects | 11.4 | 7.5 | 12.1 | 4.2 | 9.2 | 9.3 | 11.8 | 8.6 | 7.7 | 7.1 | 8.0 | 96K | Flat |
| All occupations | 46.9 | 47.0 | 46.8 | 46.9 | 47.0 | 46.8 | 47.0 | 46.8 | 46.9 | 47.1 | 47.1 | 163.5M |
Percent of employed who are women, BLS CPS annual averages table 11. Blank: not published or not defined. 2025 annual averages exclude October (not collected during the federal shutdown). Even years 2012 to 2018 are in the CSV.
What this means for MSPs
The core MSP technical roles, support specialists and network and systems administrators, have been about 27% and 17% women for years, so the people already doing those jobs are roughly three-quarters men or more. Firms that want more women on technical teams will not get there by waiting for the labor market to change; the occupation data show no trend that would do it. Recruiting from adjacent roles where women are better represented, such as systems analysis (44% women), is one lever the data support. On pay, the 86% median ratio is a market-wide figure, not a measure of any one firm, but it is a useful benchmark for a pay audit of technician and engineer grades. For local pay benchmarks by role, see our IT salaries by state.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of the tech industry is female?
Women held 27.5% of jobs in U.S. computer and mathematical occupations in 2025, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics annual averages, against 47.1% of all jobs. In January to September 2026, the share was 26.0%.
Is the share of women in tech increasing?
Barely. It was 25.0% in 2011 and 27.5% in 2025, a trend of about 0.12 percentage points a year. At that pace it would take roughly 157 years to reach women’s share of all jobs.
What percent of cybersecurity workers are women?
Women were 15.9% of information security analysts in 2025 and averaged 18.0% over 2023 to 2025, BLS data show. ISC2’s survey of security professionals estimated 22% of security team members globally and 19.2% in the U.S.
What percentage of software developers are women?
20.3% in 2025, out of 2.25 million employed software developers. The share has stayed between 17.9% and 21.5% every year since 2011.
Do women in tech earn less than men?
Yes. Women working full time in computer and mathematical occupations had median weekly earnings of $1,828 in 2025, 85.5% of the $2,138 men earned. Across all occupations the figure was 82.1%.
Which tech jobs have the most women?
Among computer occupations, computer systems analysts (44.0% in 2025) and the data scientist group (41.8%) have the highest shares. Computer network architects have the lowest, at 8.0%.
Methodology
Source. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey annual averages: table 11, employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, and table 39, median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by detailed occupation and sex, for each year 2011 to 2025 (current and archived tables, downloaded October 15, 2026). 2026 figures come from the BLS LN database: monthly employment levels for computer and mathematical occupations, total and women (LNU02032455, LNU02032531), quarterly women’s share (LNU02070002Q), and unemployment rates by sex (LNU04034068, LNU04034039), data through September 2026.
Definitions. “Tech” means the BLS computer and mathematical occupations group plus computer and information systems managers, shown separately. Women’s share is the percent of employed people in the occupation who are women. Earnings are medians for full-time wage and salary workers. Women in cybersecurity is measured by the information security analysts occupation.
Consistency. 2011 is the first year coded on the 2010 Census occupation classification. In 2020, BLS moved to the 2018 classification: software developers lost software QA testers to a new occupation, database administrators gained database architects, web developers were split, and data scientists were coded to “other mathematical science occupations” (Census code 1240, per the Census Bureau’s 2018 code list). Occupations with no change in code or content (systems analysts, security analysts, programmers, support specialists, network administrators and architects, IT managers) are comparable across all 15 years.
Trend test. For each occupation we fit an ordinary least squares line to annual shares 2011 to 2025 and compare the 2011 to 2013 and 2023 to 2025 averages. “Rising” or “Falling” requires a slope at least twice its standard error and a change of 2 points or more; a clear slope with a smaller change is “edging”; everything else is “Flat”. The parity estimate divides the remaining gap to women’s share of all jobs by the fitted slope and is an arithmetic illustration, not a forecast.
Limitations. CPS detailed occupation estimates have sampling error, which is large for occupations with a few hundred thousand workers or fewer. BLS does not publish shares where employment is under 50,000, or medians where full-time employment is under 50,000. 2025 annual averages are 11-month averages because October 2025 was not collected. The survey measures occupations, not the tech industry.
Cite as:The Uptime Report. "Women in Tech Statistics 2026: 15 Years of BLS Data Show Women Still Hold About 1 in 4 U.S. Tech Jobs." October 2026. https://theuptimereport.com/women-in-tech-statistics/
References
- BLS, CPS annual averages table 11, Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity (2025; earlier years from the archived tables). Accessed October 2026.
- BLS, CPS annual averages table 39, Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by detailed occupation and sex. Accessed October 2026.
- BLS, CPS tables, including archived annual averages 2011 to 2024. Accessed October 2026.
- BLS, LN database files (series LNU02032455, LNU02032531, LNU02070002Q, LNU04034068, LNU04034039). Accessed October 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2018 Census occupation code list and crosswalk. Accessed October 2026.
- ISC2, “Survey: Women Comprise 22% of the Cybersecurity Workforce,” March 6, 2025. Accessed October 2026.
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