Women in IT

Background and Problem

Although the IT sector accounts for a significant share of Bremen’s economy and continues to grow steadily in the course of digitalisation, the proportion of women in this sector is only around 28%, and in the core IT field as low as roughly 15%. At the same time, IT suffers from a severe shortage of skilled workers: in 2020, 72.4% of the Bremen companies surveyed had difficulties filling advertised positions with IT professionals. This discrepancy highlights the need for targeted measures to attract more women to IT occupations and thereby counteract the skills shortage. The project Women in IT (F.IT) aimed to meet the demand for skilled workers in Bremen’s digital sector by supporting women through initial and continuing training, by uncovering the underlying reasons and drafting approaches to meeting the needs of both target groups, and by establishing processes and structures on a lasting basis in order to increase the proportion of women in IT occupations permanently. Since career change offers a time-saving and flexible route, particularly for women who have had no direct access to traditional IT training or university degree programmes, the F.IT project focused especially on career changers. F.IT operated at the interface between Bremen IT companies, women interested in IT and other relevant actors in the context of IT-related initial and continuing training and employment.

Research question

• What is the current employment situation in the Bremen IT sector, and which best-practice models for increasing the proportion of women in the sector are already being used successfully here?

• What obstacles, needs and potential for career change exist on the part of Bremen IT companies and of women interested in IT?

• Which structures can be established in the long term to improve the opportunities for women to enter the Bremen IT sector as career changers?

Approach

By involving the various project partners, the F.IT project was able to pursue an interdisciplinary approach. Online surveys were conducted to investigate the status quo in the Bremen IT landscape. The needs and obstacles on the part of Bremen IT companies and of women interested in IT were identified by means of interviews followed by qualitative content analysis. Workshops with regional IT companies were held to collect best-practice examples and to work together on dismantling barriers, especially for women entering the sector as career changers. Women interested in IT received information on entry routes at online events and could request individual advice via the project’s own website. Continuous public relations work and participation in IT trade fairs, academic conferences and political dialogue formats (e.g. a ‘round table’) promoted regional networking. In addition, individual women were given personal support on their way into companies, for instance with help in finding internship placements.

Results

An important milestone was the launch of the project’s own website (www.bremerinnen-in-it.de), into which the matching tool ‘F.ITranet’ was integrated. This tool enabled IT companies and women interested in IT to get in touch with one another, and had recorded more than 30 registrations by IT companies by the end of the project. Further outputs were specific guidance documents providing initial orientation for women interested in IT, as well as a contact address for individual advice. Both were accessible via the project website. The advisory service was used by more than 70 women in the final year of the project.

The results were presented to the professional and academic community in scholarly publications and conference contributions. In addition, the results were transferred into further transfer formats so that they would also be taken into account in the business context. Findings concerning entry barriers (e.g. women’s lack of confidence in their own digital skills, or a lack of awareness on the part of companies of women’s differing needs) were published as a white paper in the project’s corporate design and in a format analogous to formats already familiar and recognised in Bremen (e.g. in the ‘avanja’ project). Alongside the barriers, the ‘F.IT brochure’ also contained information on the specific characteristics of the target groups and recommendations for action on how to address women career changers. Overall, the project created a network and established professional cooperation.

Dissemination and Transfer Activities

A wide range of transfer activities was implemented in the F.IT project. With regard to the process, there was ongoing exchange with all relevant actors. This included status-quo discussions with other projects in the field of continuing training and employment (e.g. the State Agency for Continuing Vocational Training – Landesagentur für berufliche Weiterbildung; LABEW+ since 2025), as well as regular exchange and cooperation with education providers in the field of qualification and guidance (e.g. Weiterbildungszentrum cbm GmbH). At the level of results and outputs, the project produced publications for various target groups: two contributions to edited volumes (academic community), one journal article (business) and three working papers (business and education). Furthermore, various presentations were given, four of them at academic conferences and three in public or corporate settings. In parallel, a LinkedIn channel was maintained, which had more than 500 followers (as at 19 June 2025). The outcome of the project was a community that continued to engage actively with the topic of women in IT.