The Gender Pay Gap in Tech

Despite improvements, the tech industry’s gender pay gap remains above the national average, and women in tech remain at a significant disadvantage to their male counterparts. 

Women in tech are still paid less in 2020. Despite the recent pushes in pay equality, a significant gender pay gap remains within the information technology sector.

In March 2020, Dice released a report, The Gender Pay Gap in Tech, that presents findings on pay differences between men and women in tech.

Dice’s findings indicate that almost every U.S. state shows a negative pay differential between men and women. In some states, there is a salary differential reaching $16,000. Below are the top ten states with the largest pay gap.

There is a wide range of pay disparity between IT occupational level. Dice’s report reveals occupation pay differentials between men and women when controlling for education, experience, and location.

The following occupations had the largest pay disparities.

Mainframe Systems Programmer -$16,328

DevOps Engineer -$15,077

Security Architect -$14,134

Data Architect -$13,123

Database Administrator -$11,053

Data Scientist -$9,561

Data Engineer -$9,242

Software Engineer -$8,559

Security Engineer -$6,847

In addition to pay disparities, Dice has analyzed the satisfaction levels related to compensation, job, and team composition for men and women. Overall, the data indicates that women are typically less satisfied with their compensation than men.

A recent report from Hired, The 2020 State of Wage Inequality, also analyzes the gender wage gap and how that correlates the “Expectation Gap.” The data reveals that male candidates expect to earn more and their offers match that expectation.

“Salary expectations any candidate has for a given job are closely tied to the salary ultimately offered to them by a prospective employer. Our data reveals male candidates expect to earn more and our report shows their offers match that expectation.”– Hired CEO Mehul Patel, The 2020 State of Wage Inequality 

According to Dice’s report on the Gender Pay Gap, the average salary for a woman satisfied with her compensation is $93,591, while the average salary for a woman dissatisfied with her compensation is $69,543. In comparison, compensation satisfaction for men is $108,711, while the average salary for a man dissatisfied with their compensation is $81,829.

Despite improvements, the tech industry’s gender pay gap remains above national average and women in tech remain at a significant disadvantage to their male counterparts. Transparency is the key to closing the gap, according to the report. To create change, organizations must recognize where disparities lie, and act accordingly.