Underpinning the copious articles on the undernourished pipeline of IT/STEM graduates, there is one common truth: the numbers – of both sexes – coming out of our secondary and tertiary education system at present are not sufficient to meet employers’ demands, nor will they be for many years.

As a result, recruiters, whether in IT, engineering, construction or any other discipline requiring STEM grads, are struggling to meet employers’ demands and, truth be told, often simply moving the problem around from one firm to the next.

Of course, if you are headhunted to a better job that leaves your previous employer with a problem. That’s not your problem, nor your new employer’s problem, but a problem nonetheless. For the recruitment industry, it’s another opportunity and, given the paucity of quality candidates, a real challenge.

Sadly, it’s one that some unscrupulous recruitment agencies seek to capitalise upon, but any recruiter with a shred of integrity ought not to use his or her candidates simply as a passport to a fee in this way. Those that do are exacerbating the problems of the IT industry and not doing the recruitment industry any favours either.

Solving the STEM Supply Problem

Whether what we are doing now to try to solve the problem of undersupply of STEM grads will have the impact we want is a moot point. Sadly, despite years – if not decades – of trying, things are not improving at the rate required.

The likelihood is that an array of multifarious factors combines in varying proportions to inhibit girls from taking up STEM subjects. For one, it may be a poor teacher, for another a class full of dismissive boys, for yet another it may be family, religious or other social pressures to go (without any sense of irony) into a “nice, safe career, like teaching.”

There is indisputable evidence that no matter what is done the numbers studying the relevant subjects are hardly shifting. In particular, the percentage of girls studying physics at undergraduate level peaked at c. 22% in 2009 but has not really moved since then, although in absolute terms the number of girls studying the subject has grown slowly (c. 3%) year on year – the same percentage as for boys).

However, as the Institute of Physics explains, since the early 1990s the proportion of girls in the A-level physics cohort has not fallen below 20.7% but not risen above 23.1% and in 2018 the only subject to have a smaller proportion of girls than physics was computer science, where females made up a meagre 11.8% of entrants.

In the US, where many would consider the educational establishment to be extremely ‘woke’, only 27% of all students taking the AP Computer Science exam are female and just 18% of American computer-science college degrees go to women (although these numbers are growing).

Addressing Gender Inequality

Why are we where we are? Well, there is some evidence that countries (typically Western) where gender equality is more advanced actually perform worse. A paper published by American psychologists Gijsbert Stoet shows that “the more gender-equal the country, as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, the larger this gap between boys and girls in having science as their best subject.”

When comparing figures from the UK or the US with, say, Algeria, where 41% of college-level STEM graduates are female, and we see this issue plainly. Academic studies show that girls and boys’ aptitude for science is roughly the same and in nearly all countries girls would have been capable of college-level science and maths classes if they had enrolled in them.

The paper concludes: “It is not that gender equality discourages girls from pursuing science. It’s that it allows them not to if they’re not interested.”

Furthermore, in more gender-equal countries like the UK, “it could just be that feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labour economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science.”

Are we Failing to Understand the Issue?

Does this mean that those who say there is nothing that can be done are right? For some, this is anathema and must be refuted at all costs. But suppose they are right? Should we just give up and write-off 50% of the population as being of limited use to tackling the challenges of creating a digital economy?

For the record, I don’t think those who say nothing can be done are right. However, a lot of the facts cited to make their case are reflected in the fact that here, at the frontline of IT recruitment as experienced by Be-IT, there are not enough candidates of either gender. We, and I imagine most employers, would love to have more people – of any sex – studying computer science and other digital subjects.

Some people think that the sexism inherent in IT and other industries is a cause of this lack of female participation in computer science. Certainly, Be-IT’s research on this subject last year agreed with virtually everyone else that sexism is a problem.

If that’s the case, then perhaps Mary Ann Sieghart (former Assistant Editor of The Times) has a point when she says that “girls at maintained single-sex schools are two-and-a-half times more likely to take Physics A-Level than girls at similar co-ed schools. Putting more images of women scientists in textbooks has been shown to make girls perform better than boys in science tests. Educate girls separately might be the answer?”

It might be, but there may also be another factor, and one that will not win me any friends in the teaching profession.

Brexit Worries

For all our strength as the fifth-largest global economy ( according to the World Economic Forum), the UK is ranked 41st for quality of science and maths teaching. Incidentally, the top ten are Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, Lebanon, Netherlands, Qatar, Belgium, Estonia, Hong Kong and the USA.

This statistic for the UK is deeply worrying and also suggests that getting our post-Brexit immigration policy right for talent from across the globe is going to be even more important than we thought.

Also looking to our (post-Brexit) future, I have another potentially worrying thought. I’m sure that the shortfall of STEM graduates will push employers into accelerating robotics programmes. Computers and algorithms designing their own next-generation anyone? It will probably happen, even though many think it fraught with risk.

Then, of course, we won’t need to worry so much about gender bias and/or under-representation.

Some attribute the disinterest in STEM by girls to unconscious biases reinforcing stereotypical behaviour inherent in society, but many of these (e.g. the research which suggests that women are put off by “male” words – such as “responsibility” in job ads) seem to make the point that men and women are indeed different and respond to different things in different ways.

It would not be too hard to lead from this to conclude that the cards are simply stacked too high against girls and consequently this may result in fewer girls studying the same subjects as men. Yet again, the cry is “what can be done?”

Complaining that it’s not fair and “something must be done” will not get us very far. Accepting that, while each individual’s case will be slightly different, there is one very powerful body that can, and should, do more.

Governments, among other things, are agents of social change; from universal emancipation to stopping us from damaging other people’s health by smoking in public places.

They have the advantage of being able to legislate to create such change but the disadvantage of being composed of cowardly politicians who tend to follow the herd rather than lead it. Here though, the herd is leading us towards changing the ways in which women think about certain careers.

Back in the day, women didn’t think – or one could say, weren’t allowed to think – about a career, at least not once they’d become pregnant. Things have changed since then.

There is no reason why they can’t change in the future. The door is opening and the pressure from the influencers in society is gravitating towards women being encouraged to take up STEM. The problem is, we don’t have the time to wait…

This is the last of my Recruit FYI articles. Over the last year, I’ve very much enjoyed writing them and am indebted to Ray and the team at digit.fyi for the opportunity. Hopefully, they’ll invite me back for some ad-hoc musings on the subject of IT recruitment occasionally.

But, in the meantime, thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and I trust that some of them will have struck a chord and/or given you pause for thought.