IT is still male-dominated today, but that should and will change with the help of new software technologies. Only 17 percent of IT specialists are currently women, even though companies are striving to increase their proportion of female employees.[1] New technologies such as the low-code method have brought change to the situation on the IT job market and ensured that it will continue to change even more in favor of women. Mixed teams, both in terms of gender and the qualifications of the individual members, have proven to be more efficient compared to same-sex teams, where all team members have the same background. Unfortunately, they are still the exception and have not yet reached all companies.

Computer science remains unappealing for many young women

According to a study by the digital association Bitkom, which surveyed 500 IT and telecommunications companies, only 15 percent of applicants for jobs in IT are female. 55 percent of the companies surveyed are working to increase their proportion of women. The general goal is to increase this to an average of 25 percent. This is difficult, however, because the new generation of IT specialists is mostly male. After more and more women began studying computer science starting in the late 1970s, the proportion of female students in their first degree dropped again: In 2017, the number of computer science students fell by almost two points to 28.9 percent compared to the previous year. The proportion of women among IT graduates was 19 percent, meaning that only one in five graduate was female. If the number of female IT workers available on the market is low, it is naturally difficult for companies to fill their positions with women.

But why is it that so few women are interested in studying computer science? If you compare the proportion of women with other countries, it is not due to the ‘nature of women’ to be less tech-savvy. According to a study by the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE) [Center for University Development], 30 to 40 percent of computer science students are women in countries such as Ireland, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey.[2] The authors of the CHE study assume that the low proportion of women in computer science studies is more cultural and structural. In Germany, girls and young women are still derided all too often when they aspire to technical and scientific professions. All too often, IT people have a ‘nerd image,’ which makes the job unappealing to many.

Universities are of course aware of this problem and solutions have already been found. Thus, more and more interdisciplinary courses such as bioinformatics, medical informatics, health informatics, and administrative informatics are emerging, which are expected to draw more women and the project or principle seems to be working. This is evident based on the example of the medical informatics course, in which around 44 percent of the students are female. According to the Centrum für Hochschulforschung [Center for University Research], interdisciplinary courses are more appealing to women because they are more application-oriented.

Low-Code teams are heterogeneous

The creation of software projects using Low-Code technology is also application-related. Thanks to the module-based work, application developers require practically no knowledge of computer science and are still ‘real’ IT specialists. At Scopeland Technology, the proportion of women in application development is 37 percent (as of June 2020). Of course, this number is not representative of the entire Low-Code industry, but it shows what kind of change is possible on the IT job market.

More and more applications are being created with Low-Code, because this means that companies’ IT projects can be implemented much faster and the final database applications are tailored to individual needs. In the United States, according to the US analyst Forrester Research, 30 percent of all software applications are already created with Low-Code, which shows how strongly the methodology has already spread. Of course, this also means finding the right specialists. Low-Code developers do not necessarily have to be computer scientists, but can come from different areas of technology and science. The most important requirement for working as a Low-Code developer is the ability to think in a structured abstract way. At Scopeland Technology, only the smallest number of application developers have traditional computer science backgrounds, they are much more likely to come from mathematics, business information systems, geoinformatics, or bioinformatics.

So if you were to then set up a Low-Code team, only the qualifications and skills of the individual team members play a role, as it suits the respective project. Heterogeneous teams have proven to be more efficient and ultimately more successful. With the increasing prevalence of Low-Code in software development, the proportion of women in IT will only continue to increase in the future.