The conversation surrounding women in tech often highlights the challenge of their underrepresentation. While this imbalance is significant, it does not tell the full story. Across the tech industry—and the wider economy—women are not just participating; they are leading companies, fostering innovation, solving complex business problems, and shaping the future of numerous industries.

I believe the real long-term challenge for women in technology isn’t only about getting more women through the door, it’s also about organisations looking ahead to their future management needs and ensuring that talented women access proven pathways to develop their managerial roles, achieve visibility in organisations, receive mentorship and sponsorship to advance into senior management and leadership roles. This article explains my optimism about the future.

The inescapable fact remains that, in technology, women are outnumbered by men and there’s little sign of this changing. Despite more UK students taking STEM subjects and levelling off in humanities, higher education data show that women students still take only 31% of places. In computer sciences, it’s just 23%. 

Such an imbalance leaves a dearth of women tech leaders, now and in the future. The recent Rewards & Resilience report found that women hold only a quarter of industry roles and only five percent of tech leadership positions. Not only does the chasm between women’s and men’s prospects in technology remain, but there are also too few role models for girls, women students and managers to learn from and emulate. 

Soft and Technical Skills for an AI World

But given the lightning rise of AI in the global economy, transforming jobs and societies, are we too pessimistic? Are we focusing too much on our STEM skills base, including capabilities like data analytics and coding skills, when all the signs are that tomorrow’s workplace, and companies’ survival, will demand a much broader, nuanced, blend of both technical and soft interpersonal and reasoning skills? 

Global research by economists and tech leaders alike show an irreversible shift toward soft skills like communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. These capabilities will be essential to help companies foster team collaboration and sustain effective innovation strategies in an AI-driven economy, where so many fundamental roles and processes are being automated away. 

The required shift not only feels like company renewal but also social transformation. Microsoft found that four in five global company leaders believe GenAI tools will require new skills. Gartner forecast in 2023 that more than 30% of work skills needed three years ago would quickly become irrelevant. Tomorrow’s development teams could be led by skilled communicators and interpreters of multiple reports, rather than specialists in analytical tools and coding skills. 

Deloitte’s latest trends research found that companies balancing IT proficiency with soft skills strategies are almost twice as likely as their competitors to hit their business goals. Tellingly, US data from both the Leadership Circle and Harvard Business School indicate that women score higher on leadership skills than men.

Barriers to More Women in the Boardroom

Given these seismic shifts in work and leadership skills, should our inspiration for more women tech leaders come from a broader context: the growing role of women as leaders in the wider UK economy? There’s compelling evidence of growing representation for women in senior levels and boardrooms of organisations, if not yet calling all the shots in these businesses.  

In UK boardrooms, more than one in three leadership roles (37%) were being taken by women in 2024. Last week’s FTSE Women Leaders Review 2025 shows that women hold 43% of board roles and 35% of leadership posts at top UK companies. Six out of ten FTSE 350 companies are close to the government’s 40% representation target. There is a big momentum shift here, if not a new generation of women leaders. 

If this trend seems like the preserve of big firms with management budgets, there’s growing evidence that firms prioritising openness and inclusivity for talented women joiners and rising stars are making smarter business decisions and assembling the next generation of leaders. Successive McKinsey reports demonstrate that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to deliver higher financial returns.

Yet, women still face obstacles to their progression. Women’s representation compared with male colleagues declines from lower management roles onwards and accentuates at senior executive and board level. In most industries, not just tech, there’s a structural gap in companies’ ability to identify women leaders and then train them to realise their potential. 

Among the barriers is the UK firms’ chronic failure to invest in growing talented people. Chartered Management Institute has found that the US tops the global table for management quality and development while the UK trails in sixth. This reluctance to develop our future leaders is compounded by the lack of fiscal incentives to do so while R&D receives institutional tax breaks. 

If technology and other businesses truly want to build more capable and inclusive teams, based on a better balance of women and men, they will need to create clearer pathways for women in leadership. But it will require sustained investment and planned mentoring: work by IT governance body ISACA and others found that the two biggest barriers women face in tech workplaces are a lack of mentors (48%) and a lack of female role models (42%). 

Inclusive Tech Firms Win

Seen in this context, my experience at Nasuni is a sign of what smart companies will need to do. After valuable experience in fashion industry sales, I was attracted to technology because of its constant focus on development and disruption — products and commercial strategies must move the dial. And where could be more exciting than the channel, with its mission to realise technology’s potential while solving customers’ problems?

My experience is that technology companies can be more inclusive and ensure success for everyone. They achieve this by investing and supporting women in carefully-planned career pathways and motivating ambitious candidates. In our company’s supportive environment, where leaders inspire and mentor aspiring managers, I have been able to learn rapidly and assume a strategic leadership role in channel partner management. 

Our company leaders have demonstrated the skills and best practices to emerging managers, so I have learned to manage teams, support colleagues and enhance customer offerings. I’m now managing EMEA partner companies, building business pipelines and mutual success — and I can see a clear route to next stage leadership responsibilities and commercial goals. 

More Women Leaders in Business and Tech

Our tech industry is built on innovation, and innovation thrives in diverse teams. Smart tech firms are showing how mentoring and support contribute to career development and drive profitability. Leaders receiving mentoring achieve higher revenues and profits and better work-life balance. And as companies increase the opportunities for women managers and diversity this creates multiplier effects: gender-diverse companies don’t simply outperform their peers, they create a wider template for success and unlock genders’ latent potential. 

The yawning gender gap remains a huge challenge for our industry. But we are seeing tectonic plates shifting and women becoming leaders and role models, in tech and business. The real risk for the tech industry isn’t in bringing more women into the industry, it’s in what its businesses will lose by failing to do so. When companies help women build successful careers, everyone succeeds. 

Kenz Mroue, director of EMEA partner sales, Nasuni.