Gender pay gap: women also earn less than men in IT

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According to the Federal Statistical Office, the figure for what women earn less than men was 16% on average in 2024. According to the federal statisticians, this problem, also known as the gender pay gap, has shrunk again for the first time since 2020 –, by two percentage points. In 2006, men earned 23% more on average. According to the Federal Office, however, the adjusted pay gap has remained unchanged: If factors such as part-time work and lower pay in typical "female occupations" were removed from the calculation model, a pay gap of six percent would remain in 2023, exactly the same as in the previous year.

This cross-occupational gap more or less corresponds to the picture for the IT sector that various job portals have outlined at the request of the iX editorial team based on their salary data. According to Stepstone, with a general median gross annual salary of EUR 58,000 for the IT sector, the adjusted pay gap is around 6.3 percent, which means that women are paid less than men despite having comparable qualifications for comparable work. The median is the value that lies exactly in the middle of a series of figures. The Hays portal also quotes a figure of around six percent for the gap.

Stepstone's median salary is only 58,750 euros for men in IT and 53,500 euros for women. The difference is even more drastic in the general average salary calculated by the Kununu portal. Here, female IT specialists earn 51,673 euros, while men in IT earn 60,897 euros.

10,000 euros less for female software consultants

A look at the various occupational groups within IT also shows that women consistently earn less. Here, the occupational fields differ at best in terms of their characteristics. According to figures from Kununu, IT support is almost an outlier with very little deviation, with men earning an average of 44,632 euros per year and women 43,751 euros. The difference is usually several thousand euros per year, for example in IT project management (men 71,599 euros, women 63,108 euros). The gap is most evident in the job of software consultant with almost 10,000 euros – According to Kununu, men earn an average of 67,564 euros and women 57,586 euros.

The remuneration atlas of the Federal Employment Agency also documents clear gender differences in various IT professions. Again, these are median values for the gross monthly salary, not average figures as in Kununu. Accordingly, female computer scientists without a particular specialization earn 5,815 euros gross per month, while male computer scientists earn 6,287 euros. In software development, the median monthly salary is 5,204 euros for women and 5,951 euros for men, and the situation is similar in IT consulting (5,051 euros for women, 5,725 euros for men).

Almost the same at the start of the career

If the aspect of professional experience is added, it becomes clear that men and women start their IT careers with almost the same salary. With increasing professional experience, men then pull ahead of women. In the corresponding data from Stepstone with median gross annual salaries, women even show a slight increase in salary compared to men in the category of professional experience of less than one year – 45,000 euros compared to 44,750 euros. With one to two years' experience, both genders are still on a par at 48,250 euros. And in the following levels of experience, the gap begins to widen.

While women only achieve small pay increases after ten years of experience, men can still achieve significant increases according to the Stepstone figures. After more than ten years in an IT job, women earn 59,750 euros and men 68,500 euros. And with more than 25 years of experience, the figure is 62,250 euros for women and 74,250 euros for men.

Kununu's salary data for software developers with different levels of experience also shows only a slight difference between men and women at the beginning, with an average annual salary of 47,497 euros for women and 47,811 euros for men. Men then continue to increase their salary advantage: With ten or more years of professional experience, male devs rake in 70,659 euros, while women at the same experience level earn 67,181 euros.

The gap remains even in management positions

And even when it comes to management positions, women in IT fare worse, as Hays determined in a survey with figures from 2023. At team management level, there is an 11 percent difference between the salaries of men and women, and at divisional management level the difference is as high as 19 percent. Sarah Köhl, Director of Technology at Hays, explained that women generally fall through the career ranks more quickly in management roles anyway and get stuck at the lower levels.

This is partly due to frequent career breaks due to parental leave. Likewise, quite a few women work part-time, while at the same time management positions are only very occasionally offered on a part-time basis. And if there are only a few or no women left at certain hierarchical levels, only men are promoted, says Köhl.

Overall, jobs in IT are still a male domain. According to the Federal Employment Agency, the proportion of women among IT specialists is 18 percent. According to figures from the Federal Statistical Office for 2023, the proportion of women in traditional IT studies is around 23%, with significantly higher figures in interdisciplinary subjects such as medical informatics or bioinformatics. The proportion of women in IT subjects is particularly low at just 12%.

(axk)