Ireland’s tech sector is thriving, but beneath the surface of this digital boom lies a leadership gap that’s harder to bridge. While more women are studying and entering ICT than ever before, few make it from classroom to boardroom. The conversation about gender diversity in tech is shifting; it’s no longer just about participation, but progression.
According to the Higher Education Authority, women now make up around 36% of STEM undergraduates in Ireland, a steady rise since 2014. Yet, when it comes to leadership, the numbers shrink dramatically. A 2024 TechIreland report found that just 14% of senior technical and engineering leaders in Irish technology companies are women. The challenge isn’t getting women into ICT, it’s ensuring they stay, rise, and lead.
Across Ireland’s ICT workforce, many women leave or plateau mid-career. Research from Connecting Women in Technology (CWiT) shows that attrition spikes between the ages of 30–40, often coinciding with caregiving responsibilities or limited advancement opportunities.
While overt discrimination is rare, subtle barriers persist: unconscious bias in promotion processes, inflexible work structures, and a lack of visible female mentors in technical roles. As one senior engineer from Dublin put it, “It’s not a glass ceiling anymore, it’s a fog. You can’t see where the next step is.”
Ireland’s universities, companies, and public agencies are aiming to address existing structural barriers head on, looking at flexible working policies, and the visibility of women in leadership pipelines. Increasingly, Irish tech companies are adopting gender targets for management roles and publicly tracking their diversity progress.
Leadership diversity isn’t only about fairness; it’s a growth strategy. McKinsey’s 2023 “Diversity Wins” study found that companies with gender-diverse leadership teams are 25% more likely to outperform financially. In
Ireland’s competitive digital economy, spanning fintech, AI, and Medtech, innovation thrives when teams reflect diverse perspectives.
As Ireland positions itself as a global tech hub, fostering female leadership will be critical to sustaining innovation and addressing skill shortages. Simply put: closing the gender gap isn’t just right, it’s smart business.
Ireland has made enormous progress in encouraging girls into STEM and women into ICT. The next step is ensuring those same women don’t stall mid-career but move into positions of real influence.
This requires long-term investment in mentorship, sponsorship, leadership development, and policy reform. It also requires visible success stories; women whose journeys inspire others to keep climbing.
The good news? That change is already underway. From university lecture halls to corporate boardrooms, Irish women are reshaping what leadership in technology looks like, inclusive, innovative, and unapologetically ambitious.
