Why women's careers stall in their 30's

First results of survey show women are forced to chose between family and work.

Project 28-40, a research project  which aims to find out why women in their 30s fail to progress in their careers at the same rate as men, has released its first results.

Since November, 25,000 women and men have responded to an online survey aimed at learning more about women’s aspirations, the importance of role models, the usefulness of current career development opportunities and why women leave the workplace.

This, the organisers say, is the largest ever survey of women in the workplace to have been carried out in the UK. The idea is to listen to what women have to say and then take action to change the status quo.

The survey and analysis is being undertaken by Opportunity Now, a campaign run by Business in the Community to encourage better gender balance in leadership, a more flexible culture and unbiased recognition and reward  for all in the workplace. Opportunity Now is also one of the prime movers behind the Women on Boards campaign.

This project is focusing on women aged 28-40 because that is seen as the danger zone where the careers of men and women start to diverge and the pay gap starts to increase, Opportunity Now's director Kathryn Mawrockyi explained.

The first 10,000 responses have already been analysed - and initial results show that over 80 per cent of female respondents feel having children will affect their career progression.

Nearly 70 per cent believed that society expects women to put children before their careers, while two thirds believe work needed to be their number one priority if they wanted to succeed.

Over seven in ten felt conflicted to balance home and work and more than six out of ten felt under pressure to exceed in work and in the home.

Over 90 per cent believed that senior roles involved stress, long hours, pressure and high stress levels, while four out of five respondents believed that top businesswomen were portrayed as superwomen by the media.

Only 34 per cent believed that opportunities to progress are equal between women who have children and those who do not, and over 60 per cent believe flexible working still means working long hours.

However, nearly nine in every ten respondents believed that being a working mother enabled them to be a good role model to their children, provided balance in their lives and enabled them to provide a good life for their family.

In-depth analysis of the survey findings will continue until April. As part of this, between 11 and 28 February ten focus groups containing 8-10 participants will take place  in London, Leeds, Glasgow and Bristol, to explore the emerging themes of the survey in more detail.

Story published on Women's Views on News, February 20, 2014

Two female tech experts join LSEG board

...as industry increasingly looks to women to meet skills shortages.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) appointed two leading female tech entrepreneurs to its board last week, which means there are now only two FTSE 100 companies with no women on their boards.

The two are Joanna Shields and Sherry Coutu.

Shields is currently chief executive of Tech City, the government-backed initiative to help new technology companies. She is changing her role there, and will now be chair.

She has over 25 years of experience building global technology businesses, having held senior executive roles at Facebook, AOL and Google.

In 2013, she created the UK government backed 'Future Fifty' acceleration programme which is to nurture and support high growth businesses in the UK. She also serves as a non-executive director of 

TalkTalk Telecom Group Plc and as a member of Mayor Boris Johnson's London Smart Board.

Shields told the Independent she would continue to champion the UK’s digital industry as chairman of Tech City UK and in her role as business ambassador.

Sherry Coutu is on the board of computer firm Raspberry Pi, Artfinder, Cambridge University’s finance board, Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge University Press, as well as on advisory boards to Linkedin and Care.com and a number of not-for-profit companies in the technology and education sector.

She has more than 20 years of experience leveraging technology to drive companies from their earliest entrepreneurial stages through to global expansion, and has made angel investments in more than 50 companies and holds investments in 3 venture capital firms.

Voted by TechCrunch as the best CEO mentor/advisor in Europe in November 2010, in May 2011, she was voted by Wired magazine as one the top 25 'most influential people in the wired world', and one of the top ten most influential investors and women.

The London Stock Exchange said it was bringing the two in particularly for their IT sector experience, “reflecting the group’s continued focus on delivering innovative technology solutions to its customers around the world”.

And the business world is increasingly looking to women to fill the gap in science and technology expertise and to keep the economic recovery going.

For example, in November Sir John Perkins, chief scientific advisor to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published A Review of Engineering Skills.

Perkins called for a high profile campaign to reach out to young people, especially girls aged 11-14, with inspirational messages about engineering and diverse role models, to encourage more diversity in apprenticeships and a change to the gendered stereotypes associated with technical sectors.

The review also recommended that the government should continue to support schools to increase progression to A-level physics, especially among female students.

The review also drew attention to the actions being taken regarding engineering skills in the Devolved Administrations.

The Scottish Government, for example, is supporting the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) to create sustainable change for women in SET sectors throughout 

Scotland, and the CareerWISE Scotland campaign to support girls and women to take up and retain jobs in STEM occupations. It has also encouraged Scottish universities to sign up to diversity schemes such as Athena SWAN.

The Welsh Government's National Science Academy (NSA) and sector work fund activities to engage young people in STEM, e.g. supporting Airbus to run an all girls cohort of Industrial Cadets.

Currently only around one in ten engineers in the UK are women.

Story published on Women's Views on News, January 23, 2014