New analysis indicates that artificial intelligence is expected to significantly widen the gender skills gap in the United Kingdom's GBP £1 trillion technology sector.
The findings are based on data compiled by GenAI consultancy Ainigma, which created league tables to identify the industries where AI is set to either decrease or increase the gender skills gap. The report underscores a pressing need for sector leaders to embed tailored AI programmes into standard processes to mitigate widening disparities between male and female employees.
Sectors closing the gap
Ainigma's analysis highlights the top ten UK sectors projected to see a narrowing of the gender skills gap due to AI adoption. These include legal services, financial services and insurance, public sector, HR and recruitment, journalism, marketing and advertising, education administration, healthcare administration, charity, and retail management and eCommerce.
The data suggests that AI will be most effective at closing the gap in roles characterised by research, administration, or office-based work. Such environments are typically more adaptable to AI-driven processes, which can help level disparities in productivity, output quality, and efficiency between male and female employees.
Sectors widening the gap
Conversely, ten sectors are highlighted where AI could further increase the gender skills gap. These include construction and skilled trades, manufacturing and engineering, AI and tech development, transport and logistics, energy and utilities, investment banking and private equity, venture capital, scientific R&D (including life sciences and pharmaceuticals), creative arts, and skilled agriculture.
The research points out that these industries rely more on manual labour or are demographically dominated by men in senior and strategic 'AI-commander' roles. This creates conditions where the introduction of AI may inadvertently favour existing male-skewed hierarchies, thus increasing disparities.
AI development: a surprising inclusion
A notable outcome from the league table is the projection that the AI and tech development sector itself is at risk of increased gender disparity. The research attributes this to the current dominance of men in roles responsible for shaping, controlling, and implementing AI solutions. This dynamic raises concerns about the potential for gender bias being embedded into AI tools, which could also have knock-on effects in other sectors that leverage these technologies.
The report further notes that AI may not have the same levelling effect on the skill sets of top performers, but instead may increase their strategic value within organisations.
Expert comment
Arne Mosselman, founder and CEO of Ainigma, says: "While AI has been impacting our lives for more than 70 years, it's only become ubiquitous over the last five years or so. It's therefore vital that business leaders and their employees understand the power of AI and use it to its full potential.
Our analysis paints a clear picture of the divide across UK sectors and how AI usage is set to impact the gender skill gap. Surprisingly, there's a real variety of industries set to see the gender discrepancies increase; ranging from manual labour-focused sectors like construction to those on the cutting edge of innovation, including AI and tech development, engineering and life sciences.
For leaders in those sectors, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The step-change comes when organisations empower their staff and implement fully-functioning AI programmes that drive sustainable, long-lasting change and significant productivity gains. With the right tools in place, a bottom-up GenAI transformation aligned with an organisation's strategic business objectives can help narrow gender skills gaps, when managed equitably."
Research methodology
To produce its projections, Ainigma synthesised findings from a Harvard Business School study and a Microsoft Research paper. The Harvard study found that women are approximately 20% less likely than men to use generative AI tools, but that AI has the capacity to boost the productivity of lower-performing employees, acting as a potential leveller. The Microsoft paper offered a method for quantifying AI applicability scores, measuring uses of AI in specific tasks, success rates, and overall organisational impact.
By mapping these findings onto UK sector demographic data, Ainigma categorised sectors into those where AI's current capabilities could help close the skills gap, and those where demographic and job role characteristics could see the gap increase. This approach provided a dual-sided league table offering an evidence-based projection of where gender skills disparity will widen or narrow.
For this analysis, the 'gender skills gap' was defined as the disparity in measurable productivity, output quality and efficiency between male and female employees, usually influenced by representation and seniority within an industry.
The analysis shows that the effects of AI on gender equity are likely to vary substantially between industries, with particular implications for business leaders tasked with steering AI adoption and workforce strategies in the years ahead.
