Just 18 out of 150 digital agencies in the North managed by women
Out of 150 digital businesses in the North of England just 18 are managed by women, according to a survey conducted by recruitment firm The Candidate.
The number of employees across these businesses totalled 4173, with nearly twice as many men currently working in the sector than women.
This number dwindles further when looking at the number of women in management roles, with 1131 men at that level compared to 441 women. At senior management level, 18 out of the 150 businesses involved in the research were headed up by women.
“We know there is a lack of professionals with digital skills, especially in the North, but we wanted to find out whether a gender gap might be a contributing factor. What we discovered in our findings, is that we could potentially be alienating women, and discouraging them from taking up a career in digital – thus missing out on a big proportion of talent,” explained Brian Matthews, managing partner at The Candidate.
Flexible working hours appeared to be among the reasons, with 17 per cent of women stating they need that from their employer versus fiver per cent of men.
Likewise, good maternity policies were a necessity for nearly a third (29 per cent) of those surveyed.
Finally, the research suggested that ‘soft skill’ jobs tend to be favoured by women, with the top three roles being in marketing and social media (27 per cent), public relations and communications (18 per cent), and account management (14 per cent).
Meanwhile, ‘technical’ roles such as search engine optimisation and pay-per-click were found to be more readily taken by men.
The Drum regularly speaks to women in the industry about gender-gap issues as part of its Girl Guide series. You can view all of our interviews with the likes of Mondelez’s Dana Anderson, Havas Worldwide’s Kate Robertson, and Channel 4’s Gill Whitehead here.