UK leads the way for number of women working in R&D
In honour of International Women’s Day 2023, Reclaim Tax UK (a Ryan company), has analysed OECD data to reveal the progress made in increasing the number of women in R&D and what the next steps are for improving gender equality in R&D.
The UK is paving the way for women working in research and development with more female workers than anywhere else in the world.
But with the ratio of women to men in R&D almost unchanged in the past 10 years, could more be done to balance the scales?
Women in R&D in the UK
There are 213,856 women working in research and development in the UK at the moment, out of a total workforce of 548,498.
UK employers have hired 67,645 more female researchers in the past 10 years – a rise of 46%.
It means the UK is leading the way globally, with the highest number of women working in R&D in the world. We are followed by Germany which employs 187,231 women (an increase of 54% over ten years) and Japan with 158,927 female workers (an uplift of 31%).
Proportion of men to women in R&D across the world
Despite the UK coming out on top for most women employed in R&D, the proportion of women working in research has hardly changed over the same period.
Women make up 39% of the UK R&D workforce, compared to 37.9% a decade ago, making this an area where the country needs to improve.
The analysis of the ratio of women to men working in R&D shows the UK is down in 12th place.
Argentina has the highest proportion of female researchers at 53%, followed by Latvia with a nearly 50-50 split and Lithuania at 49%. Argentina and Latvia are the only countries where the number of women in the R&D workforce is greater than men.
There is still a way to go
The UK should be proud that it is home to so many female researchers, but there is still a way to go to improve the gender balance.
There are still six men for every four women researchers in the UK, a figure nearly unchanged in the last decade.
Government ambitions to make the UK into a science superpower with huge levels of investment means this is an incredibly exciting time to be working in R&D.
However, the industry must do more to show it is a profession that is accessible to all, and offering great career opportunities.