Nearly 70 percent of technology leaders believe they are missing vital skills as a result of low representation of women in their teams, according to the latest Harvey Nash Technology CIO survey.

Here are a few highlights of the survey:

Untapped potential: Sixty-eight percent of respondents identified at least one major positive impact they are missing from not having enough female representation on their teams. The skills/attributes most missed were relationships with internal customers (51 percent), team cohesion and morale (48 percent), and creativity and innovation (46 percent).

Gender imbalance in top positions: The proportion of CIOs and technology leaders that are female has remained virtually unchanged for the past 7 years at just 7 percent. (In 2005, it was 8 percent.)

Lack of female role models in middle management: Over one-third of those surveyed confirmed they have no female technology managers at all in their organization, and 81 percent have less than one-quarter of management roles populated by women.

Technology not seen as attractive to female graduates: Almost one-quarter of CIOs (24 percent) have no women at all on their technical and development teams. CIOs of both genders believe the main cause of gender imbalance is the supply of talent: 75 percent of women CIOs believe there is a lack of qualified women candidates available for technology roles and 88 percent of men share this view.

Overall, a major concern voiced in the survey is that there is a lack of female leaders in technology to inspire the next generation of female graduates.

Source: Harvey Nash

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