More than half of the women working in the UK’s tech industry feel that they are discouraged from pursuing a career in tech, while more than a third say they only occasionally or rarely enjoy equal career opportunities as their male peers, according to a new report.

The latest Women in Tech survey from recruitment firm Lorien shows that the tech sector remains a male-dominated field with women making up just 29% of the workforce, and even less in fields like DevOps, which lags further with only 15% female representation.

Despite considerable efforts over recent years to raze the obstacles women have traditionally faced when entering tech, the most common challenges are still work-life balance (45%), gender bias (27%), and pay disparity (16%).

Those figures are backed by research from last year, which found that nearly half of women working in technology feel increasing pressure to choose between their career and a family.

However, old biases, an abundance of pay gaps, and the absence of visible career paths aren’t putting women off.

The vast majority of the UK’s female tech workers (87%) said they’re confident in their role, and 81% are confident in their leadership potential, with a quarter looking to advance up the corporate ladder and even more (31%) looking to specialise in their field.

Tech firms are slowly catching up, too, with most women (75%) reporting that their current work environment is inclusive and supportive. Over half of women in the tech industry believe that the most beneficial support for their career has come from their employer, with the most valued being company-sponsored training (31%), followed by professional networking opportunities (28%).

Better gender policies are also helping, as 68% of the women polled believe that their company’s approach to inclusion is effective, leading roughly the same number of women (70%) to say that they are at least somewhat represented by their company’s leadership.

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As ever, though, more can be done to promote the role of women in tech. 

Among the most popular ideas were the establishment of professional support networks (58%), better gender pay gap reporting (51%), increased representation of women in leadership positions (40%), better policies around gender equality (26%), and targeted support programmes (13%)

As to what advice they would give a young woman embarking on a career in tech, most (39%) said it would be to continuously update their skillset to keep up with changing trends, followed building a strong network (22%), actively seeking out mentors or role models (21%), and ensuring that they advocate for themselves (18%).