Web Summit Gender In Tech Report Reveals Gaps in Tech Leadership, Pay, and AI for Women

Bob Dunn:

Today I want to do something a little bit different. As some of you know, Open Channels FM is a media partner for Web Summit, and each year the Web Summit puts out a Gender in Tech report. This was the 7th one. They surveyed more than 1,000 women in the tech community across every region of the world. Now, I could give you 3 headline numbers and send you off to read it yourself, but this time I’m going to dive into it because I don’t think that does it justice. There’s a lot in there, and some of it did kind of surprise me. So I’m going to walk through the whole thing with you section by section and share my thoughts along the way.

Also want to be upfront about something. Hey, I’m a guy talking about a report on women’s experiences in tech. I’m not here to explain those experiences to anyone, but I am personally a strong believer in women’s rights and have been for a long time. And while this report covers tech in general, not open source specifically, I think it fits right in with Open Channels FM and what we’re about. The open web only lives up to its name if it’s open to everyone, and that means the people building it need to be able to stay, grow, and lead. So a lot of what you hear today is me getting out of the way and letting the data and the women who answered speak.

Now, a little context here on who answered. Europe made up the largest share, followed by North and South America, with women also from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. A third of them are founders or in the C-suite. The biggest age group was 35 to 44 at 37%. And these are the founders, engineers, marketers, product folks, analysts, and executives. In other words, people who are in it, not watching from the outside. And the report is built around 5 themes. Let’s take them one at a time.

The first section is called Talked Over and Underpaid, and the title pretty much tells you where this is going. Since 2003, the same 3 barriers have topped the list every single year: unconscious gender bias, balancing family and career, and lack of women in leadership. Now, here’s the interesting part. All 3 of those numbers dropped between 2025 and 2026. Unconscious bias went from 68% down to 59%. Balancing family and career went from 53% down to 44%. Lack of women in leadership went down to 43% from 46%. Now, if we were to go back to 2023, bias was set at 76%. So there’s movement. It’s not nothing. But the order hasn’t changed. Same 3, same ranking, 4 years running. This tells me things are easing a bit, but the underlying problems are still there.

Then there’s sexism at work. 52% experienced it this year, which is about the same as last year’s 49%, so roughly half. So what struck me is how the report describes it. Most of it is quiet. The most common form by far is being dismissed or talked over, or making a point in a meeting, having it ignored, and then watching a man say the same thing and get the credit. I think a lot of us have seen this happen in a meeting, and maybe they didn’t say anything. One quote in the report that stayed with me came from a CEO who said, people assume she’s a secretary just because she’s a woman. She’s a CEO of her own company.

Now, pay. This is where the report says the mood has really shifted. 58% say they are not paid fairly compared with men. Last year, this number was 37%. That’s a big jump, and it’s the highest in 3 years. Another 22% say they don’t have enough information to know, and only 19% believe they’re paid fairly. Let that sit for a second. Fewer than 1 in 5 feel confident that they’re paid the same as men around them, and more than 1 in 5 don’t even have the information to judge. That second number says a lot about transparency or the lack of it. Why the jump from 37 to 58? The report doesn’t spell it out. It could be more awareness, more conversation, a tougher economy where those gaps feel sharper, but whatever the reason, it’s a clear signal that this is on a woman’s mind right now in a way it wasn’t a year ago.

Section 2 is Still Waiting on AI, and this one I especially was curious about because, hey, we talk about AI a lot on this network. Last year, 3 out of 4 women, 75%, said they believed AI could help make tech more equal. That’s a lot of optimism. This year, Web Summit asked a different question, not could it, but has it? And only 31% said yes. Here’s the full breakdown. 31% say AI has helped gender equality in tech. 34% say it’s had no impact at all. 16% aren’t sure, and 19% say AI has actually hurt. So the biggest group isn’t the group saying it helped. It’s the people saying nothing has changed. Put no impact and not sure together, and you’ve got the respondents who either didn’t see a difference or can’t tell. Now, to be fair, could help and has helped are 2 very different bars. Potential is easy. Results take time.

But what I found most interesting is what came up in the written answers, even though the survey didn’t ask about it directly. The worry isn’t about the technology, it’s who controls it. Women ask who is in the room when AI strategy gets decided, whose jobs get cut first when AI is used to reduce costs, and whether the time AI saves actually comes back to them as opportunity or just turns into more work. Now that last one probably landed with you, it did with me. We hear so much about AI saving time, but saved time doesn’t automatically go to the person who saved it. Somebody decides where it goes. One respondent put it bluntly. She said, it’s clear that top management has decided AI is a new boys’ club.

But not everyone is pessimistic, and I want to give that side its due. Some women see AI lowering the technical barrier. One respondent pointed out that female founders are often non-technical and that finding a technical co-founder is one of the biggest hurdles in starting a tech company. Her view is that AI could significantly empower women there, letting them build a product without needing a technical male co-founder. And honestly, that’s an open web story too, lowering barriers so more people can build and participate. That’s something many of us in open source have cared about for a long time. The question is whether the people steering AI make sure that door actually opens for everyone.

Section 3 is the one that hit me the hardest. It’s titled More Women Are Thinking About Leaving. 42% of respondents said that in the past 12 months, they’ve considered reducing their hours, stepping back from leadership, or leaving tech altogether, more than 4 in 10. And when you break it down by age, it tells a story. For women 25 to 34, it’s 43%. For 35 to 44, it peaks at 52%. Then it drops to 36% for 45 to 54 and 29% for 55 and over. So the exit pressure peaks right in mid-career. More than half of the women between 35 and 44 have thought about pulling back. That’s the stage where people are often moving into senior roles, building real expertise, becoming the leaders and mentors the industry says it wants. And it’s exactly where we’re at risk of losing them. It’s not just thinking about it either. 56% know a woman who has already left or scaled back.

So why? Respondents could pick more than one reason. Burnout or health came in first at 57%. Cost or availability of childcare was right behind at 54%. Then partner’s career taking priority at 35%. Workplace culture or bias at 25%. And a better opportunity outside of tech at just 16%. That number is worth noticing. Women aren’t mostly leaving because something better came along. They’re leaving because they’re worn out or because the logistics of caring for a family don’t add up. Those are the things companies and communities can actually do something about. There’s a quote here I appreciated. A respondent said, women are encouraged to have it all, which means doing it all until they burn out instead of building a healthy, human-centric tech culture.

And in the open-ended questions, other themes came up that rarely get talked about at work. Pregnancy, fertility, and family planning. Periods, menopause, and perimenopause. The report notes that these shift with age. Younger women talked more about pregnancy and planning a family. Other women raised menopause. I’ll be honest, menopause is not something I’ve heard come up much in tech conversations. I never see it. Not a lot of people talking on social about it, but I do also see it. In fact, I think back, I remember somebody that I know did start a podcast on it. But hey, it’s one of those things pushing experienced women out of the industry. It probably should be talked about more.

Section 4 was new this year and its topic, well, I don’t think a lot of people expect in a tech report. It’s about the tradwife trend.

If you haven’t come across it, Tradwife is short for traditional wife. Over the past few years, women have built social media channels and brands around homemaking, caregiving, and having a male breadwinner. Now, staying home to raise a family is nothing new. For many women, it’s been a reality, and for some, it’s a choice. What the report sets this apart is its reach, its polished picture of home life, and the fact that it’s become part of a political debate. Web Summit asked about it because it ties into a long-running question: should women have to choose between career and family?

So what did women say? When asked how the trend influences the broader conversation on gender equality and workplace policy, 36% said it strongly reinforces traditional gender roles. Another 22% said it somewhat enforces them. Together, that’s 58%. You’ll see in the summary, 30% said it has no meaningful influence or they don’t know, and 12% said it actually advances flexibility and choice.

It’s here where it gets more nuanced. When women were asked for their immediate thoughts in their own words, the most common response was some version of, it’s her choice, but not for me. Other themes came up too. Some saw it as a step backwards. Some left alarmed, calling it dangerous or sad. Some saw a political agenda behind it. Some saw it as performative or monetized content, and some saw it as a symptom of burnout. The biggest concern, though, was financial independence. And there’s an irony, a lot of respondents pointed out. Many of the women promoting a life outside paid work are earning a living from the very content. Our respondents said tradwife content blends the appeal of a slower, home-centered life and an escape from workplace burnout, but promotes rigid gender roles and financial dependence dressed up as empowerment. Another, earlier in the report, had some simple advice. Always have your own money, ladies. It gives you the freedom.

And some questioned the question itself. They pointed out the trend isn’t new and that stepping away from the work isn’t a choice everyone gets to make. One woman noted that with tech layoffs affecting more women than men, some women didn’t really choose this at all. I think that connects right back to section 3. If burnout is the top reason women are thinking of leaving, it makes sense that a softer, slower life looks appealing on a phone screen. The trend may be less about nostalgia and more about how exhausting work has become.

After all that, I’m glad the report ends on a more helpful note. Section 5 is called Still Ready to Lead. 84% say there are women in leadership at their company. That breaks down to 35% at C-suite and 49% in senior management, and that number has stayed steady between 80% and 88% for 4 years now. 47%, nearly half, feel empowered to pursue a leadership role themselves, and 42% say their company is taking the right steps on gender diversity. So, despite the burnout, the pay concerns, and the people thinking about leaving, women are present at the top, and plenty of them want to get there.

This section also looks at DEI programs, which have been in the headlines a lot with major companies scaling them back. What did respondents actually see at their own workplace? 14% said programs are scaled back or scrapped, 39% saw no change, 10% saw them expand. Almost 1 in 5 said their company has never had a program, and 18% didn’t know if one existed. The report makes the point that rollbacks were less widespread than the headlines suggest, but still significant. And here’s the number from this section that I think matters most. Where DEI programs expanded, 59% of women feel safe against gender concerns at work. Where they stayed the same, it’s 40%. Where they were scaled back or scrapped, it drops to 29%. So women are twice as likely to feel safe speaking up when their company invested in these rather than cutting them. Whatever you think about DEI as a label, that’s pretty clear between what a company does and whether people feel safe raising a problem.

On the bigger picture, government policy and changes in gender-related laws feel more distant. 55% said those haven’t affected their career decisions, and 26% weren’t sure. For most women, the workplace is where change feels real. One respondent comment really sums up the mood here. She said, in essence, we know what’s happening. Help us find the actions, the quick wins, and the long-term changes. What can I do now, and how can I help others today? And like that, it’s a call to move from talking to doing. And honestly, it’s a fair challenge to someone like me sitting behind a microphone talking about the report.

Now, before I wrap up, one more thing worth mentioning here. For the first time, this report includes perspectives from Web Summit’s Women in Tech Ambassadors, a program they launched in 2025. I won’t read the full answers, but I want to share a bit of what they said because they add some real-world texture to the numbers.

One of them said the biggest challenge is building confidence in women early on, not just technical skills, but the confidence to speak up, take risks, and see themselves as leaders. Her point was that a seat at the table only matters if a woman believes they belong there and uses it. Another spoke to the tradwife trend. What concerns her is the idea that women have to choose between family, ambition, and impact. For her, motherhood actually changed how she saw leadership. She later left the corporate world to start her own company, and she’s clear that wasn’t stepping back. It was a different kind of leadership. Another one said diversity rollback exposes how much past efforts relied on surface-level quotas without real accountability. Her response is to build platforms and economic power from within while still pushing companies for real market access, contracts, and capital. And lastly, one shared some sobering figures of her own. Women made up just 20% of the tech workforce in 2025. All-female founding teams just got 1% of US venture capital in 2024. And she said what worries her most isn’t the rollback itself, it’s the silence that follows. Now think about that. That’s a line that sticks with you, the silence that follows.

So where does that leave us? Well, the report’s own conclusion is pretty simple. 7 years in, progress is visible, but change still feels too slow. What’s different now is the context. AI is reshaping work, traditional roles are back in the conversation, and more women are asking themselves how long they want to stay.

A few things I think stood out. Pay transparency is a real issue, and it’s getting louder. AI isn’t going to fix equality on its own, and who makes the decisions about it matters as much as the tech itself. Mid-career women are the ones who are most at risk of losing, and the reasons are things we can actually work on, like burnout and childcare. And when companies invest in supporting women, women feel safer speaking up. That’s not a small thing. One respondent said, we need a village to get there. Not just women supporting women, but men, companies, governments, and policies. Everybody has a part to play. I agree with that. And that includes those of us in the open source and open web world. We talk about community and inclusion all the time. This report is a good reminder to check whether we’re living up to it.

If you want to dig into this report yourself, it’s worth the read. So thanks for listening. And as always, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for having me. Hear what you think, and I’d be curious to know if anything surprised you, matches your own experience. Reach out and let me know. Take care, and I’ll catch you next time.