The UK Government has launched the Women in Tech Taskforce, a new industry and government initiative aimed at increasing the number of women entering, staying in, and progressing within technology careers across the UK. This is not simply a diversity initiative. It is a strategic response to long-standing structural issues that continue to restrict the growth of the UK tech workforce and the wider digital economy, including fast-growing sectors including fintech, where demand for specialist tech talent is intense.
According to the official UK Government announcement on the Women in Tech Taskforce, the initiative brings together senior leaders from across the technology ecosystem. This includes founders, technology executives, inclusion specialists, and talent advocates. Their role is to advise both government and industry on how to remove barriers across the full tech career lifecycle, from education and early career entry through to leadership and entrepreneurship.
This announcement comes at a time when demand for technology professionals continues to rise across software engineering, artificial intelligence, and data science. Despite this, women remain significantly under-represented in technical and leadership roles across the UK tech sector, as highlighted in the EY Women in Fintech report 2023. Fintech, which relies heavily on these skills to build products in payments, lending, digital assets, and infrastructure, feels this talent gap acutely, according to Tech Funding News and Women in Tech UK.
The State of Women in Tech in the UK
Women continue to be under-represented in core technical roles and senior leadership positions, particularly within engineering, emerging technologies, and founder-led technology businesses. In fintech specifically, women make up a minority of the workforce and an even smaller share of board and C-suite roles, reflecting broader trends across the tech and financial services sectors (EY report).
The economic impact of this imbalance is substantial. Research referenced by the Women in Tech Network shows that women leaving the tech sector, or failing to progress into senior roles, contributes to billions in unrealised productivity across the UK economy. Senior-level representation remains well below parity, despite sustained demand for skilled tech professionals, and this constrains growth potential in innovation-driven sectors such as fintech (Tech Funding News).
Key Focus Areas of the Women in Tech Taskforce
The Women in Tech Taskforce will focus on several priority areas that directly influence hiring, retention, and leadership progression:
Improving access to education and training
Encouraging more girls and women to view technology as an accessible and sustainable long-term career path, including routes into high-demand areas like software, data, cybersecurity, and AI that underpin modern fintech platforms (Women in Tech UK).
Supporting progression and retention in tech roles
Addressing structural and cultural factors that lead women to leave tech roles at higher rates than their peers, such as lack of visible progression, exclusion from key projects, and inflexible working models (EY report).
Increasing representation in leadership and entrepreneurship
Improving visibility and opportunity for women in senior technology leadership and founder roles across the UK, particularly relevant in fintech where female founders and C-level leaders remain under-represented despite strong growth (Tech Funding News).
These focus areas closely reflect the hiring challenges EC1 Partners observes across fintech, financial services, and high-growth technology businesses.
What This Means for Tech Hiring Strategy
From a recruitment perspective, strengthening the tech talent pipeline is now critical, especially for fintech firms competing with big tech and banks for similar skill sets.
“What we see repeatedly in fintech hiring is that the talent is there, but the system often isn’t built to keep it. The Women in Tech Taskforce matters because it reframes diversity as a growth and hiring issue, not a box-ticking exercise. If companies want sustainable access to scarce tech skills, they have to fix progression, visibility, and inclusion not just pipelines.”
The Women in Tech Taskforce highlights an important reality: tech hiring challenges are not driven purely by skills shortages. They are also driven by unequal access to opportunity, progression, and retention.
Based on EC1 Partners’ experience supporting technology hires in fintech, several patterns consistently emerge:
- Women are more likely to leave tech roles due to limited visibility of career progression, rather than a lack of technical capability.
- Job descriptions that emphasise long lists of non-essential requirements disproportionately discourage female candidates from applying.
- Companies that invest in mentorship, sponsorship, flexible working, and clear inclusion accountability consistently outperform peers when building diverse technical teams.
This initiative adds momentum to inclusion efforts already underway and reinforces diversity as a genuine competitive advantage in fintech recruitment (EY report).
What Tech Employers Can Do Now
Technology leaders and hiring managers can take immediate action to align with this shift:
- Audit job descriptions to focus on impact and core competencies rather than rigid requirement lists.
- Introduce transparent progression pathways through mentorship and sponsorship programmes.
- Partner with education and community initiatives to build early-stage, diverse talent pipelines, including fintech-focused programmes and bootcamps (Women in Tech UK).
- Track representation, progression, and retention data to ensure accountability and measurable progress.
These steps support inclusive hiring while improving access to scarce technical talent in competitive markets such as fintech.
Looking Ahead for UK Tech Hiring
The launch of the Women in Tech Taskforce marks a meaningful step towards a more inclusive and competitive UK technology sector. It reinforces the link between diversity, innovation, productivity, and long-term economic growth (Tech Funding News).
For employers and talent leaders, aligning internal hiring and retention practices with this national momentum is not just good practice. It is a strategic opportunity to attract, retain, and develop the next generation of technology and fintech leaders.
Need Guidance on Building a More Inclusive Fintech Tech Workforce?
Our team of tech recruitment specialists at EC1 Partners can help you audit hiring processes, attract diverse talent, and strengthen progression pathways.
Get in touch with our fintech tech specialists today to discuss how we can support your hiring strategy and build inclusive, high-performing technology teams.
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