Work-life balance is the most significant barrier for women in tech
Let’s start with something simple, but real: if you can’t balance work and life, you burn out. Fast. And according to Lorien’s industry-wide survey, 45% of women in tech listed work-life balance as their biggest hurdle in the sector.
This barrier isn’t just about long hours. It reflects the wider societal expectation that women need to bridge both professional and caregiving roles. The system assumes too much and delivers too little. Women still carry most of the care responsibilities at home, making flexibility at work not optional, but critical. When these needs are ignored, people leave. That’s not lost potential, it’s a failure of design.
What should business leaders do? Normalize flexibility. Build systems that adjust without breaking. Listen to your team. Make flexible remote structures more robust, and treat asynchronous work like an asset, not a compromise. It’s how top talent stays engaged, and how companies future-proof workforce retention.
The Tech Talent Charter backed this up. Their research shows 12% of women in tech roles left specifically to manage care duties. Another 40% said staying in their role depended directly on how well it aligned with those responsibilities. Those numbers can’t be ignored if we expect to scale human capital alongside product innovation.
We don’t need more awareness, we need execution. When leaders eliminate unnecessary roadblocks, productivity and inclusion stop working against each other. They start compounding.
Gender bias and limited career progression obstruct women’s advancement in tech
We’ve made some progress. But if 75% of women in tech say their work environments are inclusive, and only 25% feel they have equal access to promotions, then we’ve created a facade, not a solution.
Gender bias doesn’t always show up as something obvious. It’s subtle. It’s in who gets invited to the tough projects, who has access to leadership, and who receives actionable feedback. It’s systemic misalignment. And it’s costing us.
Almost 30% of women surveyed by Lorien reported gender discrimination as their top barrier in the industry. That’s almost a third of an entire demographic locked out of opportunities, not because they lacked talent, but because they weren’t in the right room at the right time.
What this means for executives is straightforward: career progression needs to be structured, not assumed. Clearer frameworks, transparent evaluation metrics, and equal access to growth paths are non-negotiable. If leadership fails to deliver these, the talent pipeline will leak, badly.
Darren Topping, Director of Enterprise Solutions at Impellam Group, calls this out directly. He says there’s no room for passivity. Equal access to career growth is essential. And it doesn’t happen by default.
Investing in targeted leadership development for women isn’t about checkboxes, it’s about ensuring you build companies that think better, move faster, and scale wider. You don’t do that with half your team stuck in neutral.
Flexible working arrangements are essential for retaining female talent in tech
If you’re not prioritizing flexibility, you’re going to lose people, especially women.
Almost 30% of women surveyed by Lorien said flexible working will be one of the most important factors shaping their future in the tech industry. Not just now, moving forward. The reason is simple: caregiving responsibilities still fall disproportionately on women. That’s not changing overnight, and your policies need to reflect that reality now.
Flexibility isn’t just about where someone works, it’s about how adaptable your infrastructure is to meet the evolving needs of your team. It’s about trust. It’s about designing roles that allow peak performance without compromising personal responsibilities. Companies that are serious about talent retention will codify flexible schedules, asynchronous communications, and fair workload management into their operating models.
Darren Topping at Impellam Group is clear on the priorities. Flexible working frameworks, equal parental policies, and defined pathways for advancement aren’t perks anymore, they’re required architecture. You can’t scale unless your people can. And if your environment’s not designed to support women through different stages of life, you’re capping your potential.
The cost of inflexibility is high. Twelve percent of women have already left the tech field due to caregiving pressures, per the Tech Talent Charter. Another 40% are basing their long-term decisions on how well their careers align with those responsibilities. If you don’t move on this, someone else will, and they’ll get your best people.
A lack of mentorship and visible role models hinders entry and long-term retention for women in tech
Mentorship matters, but it’s not reaching enough people. According to the data, only 17% of women in tech say they’ve received meaningful support from mentorship programs. And just 6% cited role models as a reason they entered the field. That gap isn’t just unfortunate, it’s holding the industry back.
You can’t expect people to aim for leadership if they’ve never seen someone like them get there. That’s not about inspiration, it’s about information. It’s about seeing what’s possible and having someone show you how to navigate it.
Yet we keep underdelivering. Despite the clear need, mentorship lacks structure in most organizations. And informal connections aren’t enough when barriers are systemic. Executives need to build reliable mentorship systems that allow for consistent access, guidance, and long-term growth. Not only that, women in the field need visibility. Their work, their promotions, and their career stories need to be amplified. Silence isn’t neutral here, it compounds exclusion.
There is some clear demand. 49% of women surveyed by Lorien said they’d be more likely to join a company after hearing career stories from other women inside that organization. That shouldn’t be overlooked. Representation must be intentional, and measurable.
If you want to keep and attract elite female talent, don’t wait for mentors and role models to appear organically. Build the infrastructure. Make it visible. And structure it the same way you would any strategic asset, with goals, accountability, and real traction.
Robust career support systems, including In-House training and networking, are vital for career growth in tech
If you want employees to grow, give them the tools to do it. That’s straightforward. And in the tech space, where everything moves fast, structured internal support makes a measurable difference, especially for women.
Lorien’s survey shows that 31% of women working in tech consider in-house training the single most valuable support they’ve received in their careers. That’s followed closely by those who said professional networks contributed significantly to their progress. These are active investments, and the payoff is retention, higher engagement, and upward mobility, three things every company claims to value.
Most skill-building happens on the job. But that’s not enough if people don’t have access to training that keeps pace with industry shifts. Providing regular, company-backed opportunities to upgrade knowledge and technical capability is one of the clearest signals that you’re invested in someone’s career. That trust accelerates buy-in.
Networking also matters. It provides access to information, peers, and opportunities beyond your immediate role. And in workplaces where women are underrepresented, networks help bridge gaps in visibility and advocacy. Executives should ensure these systems are embedded and accessible, especially to those earlier in their careers or outside the dominant talent hubs.
If you’re serious about long-term growth, both for individuals and your organization, you need to make development continuous and scalable. Don’t outsource that responsibility. Build it in-house, and make it predictable. That’s what gets noticed, and that’s what keeps people climbing.
Key motivators for entering tech include interest, opportunity, and compensation, though external discouragement persists
Women go into tech for many of the same reasons anyone does, because they’re interested, because the opportunities are there, and because the compensation is solid. But even with these drivers, external discouragement continues to push against the flow of talent.
According to Lorien’s data, nearly half of women said they got into tech because they had a personal interest in the field. Another 25% were drawn by the sheer number of opportunities available, and 20% by the expectation of high pay. These are consistent motivators across the board, logical, grounded, and measurable.
But here’s the issue. Over half (54%) of women believe that other women are often discouraged from entering the industry. That perception is a problem. It limits the pipeline before it even starts. It’s about whether they think the space is open to them in the first place.
This matters because perception drives participation. And the responsibility to shift that perception isn’t something to pass off to schools or outside institutions. If your company is serious about diversity and innovation, you need to engage on this directly. That means telling better stories, showing better data, and making sure that your hiring, leadership, and messaging back up your recruiting claims.
Executives need to audit both the internal and external signals their companies send. Talent won’t just walk through the door if you say the right thing once. You have to earn their time with credibility and consistency. If you want women in tech to stay, and bring others with them, you need an environment that delivers on interest, opportunity, and growth in real terms.
Active pursuit of gender diversity is critical for organizational success in the tech industry
If you’re leaving gender diversity to chance, you’re already behind. This isn’t about appearances, it’s about performance, resilience, and long-term competitiveness. Companies that don’t act intentionally to create equal opportunity will lose capable people to those that do.
The data is obvious. More than half of the women surveyed by Lorien said they’d be more likely to join an organization that demonstrates gender balance in leadership and hiring. This doesn’t just influence recruitment, it affects retention, brand equity, and your ability to scale culture across teams.
Companies want to attract elite tech talent. But credibility matters. That means delivering transparent career progression. It means building in equal parental policies, making mental health part of workload management, and providing leadership access based on performance, not pattern recognition.
Waiting for diversity to fix itself, or assuming general inclusivity policies cover the gap, won’t work. You have to measure it. Shape it. Review the numbers regularly and hold teams accountable for outcomes, not just intentions.
Annelise Smith, Managing Director of Workforce Solutions at Impellam Group, put it directly: “Businesses that fail to address these issues risk losing top talent to competitors who prioritize inclusion and equal opportunity.” She’s not speculating, she’s talking about market conditions that are already here.
Executives should ask themselves one thing: Are we designing this company to include the most skilled people available, or are we defaulting to a narrow channel? If the answer is the latter, the next top performer might not even apply. And that’s not just a cost, it’s a clear failure to compete.
Final thoughts
This isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about building better companies. The barriers women face in tech, whether it’s work-life imbalance, bias, limited advancement, or lack of visibility, aren’t edge cases. They’re system issues. And system issues demand leadership.
Top talent doesn’t wait around. If your workplace doesn’t support flexibility, transparency, or structured growth, you’re already losing out. And that affects more than diversity metrics, it hits innovation, hiring velocity, and long-term resilience.
This is a leadership mandate. Build environments where women can advance without compromise. Make mentorship real. Design career paths that scale. And stop calling flexibility a perk, it’s a requirement.
You’ll see better retention, better teams, and better outcomes. Not because it looks good, because it works.
