Fewer women than ever in UK's 'old boys' club' cyber industry

The UK cybersecurity workforce has hit its lowest female representation since 2021, with women making up just 16% overall and 12% of senior staff, signaling a persistent leadership pipeline problem for a sector central to enterprise resilience. For CIOs and technology leaders, this is not just an inclusion issue: structural bias in hiring and promotion can reduce the diversity of thinking needed to counter increasingly complex threats, while also creating legal, reputational, and talent-retention risk for IT organizations.