Despite numerous measures taken for developing gender pay equality in all sectors and industries, the gender wage gap still exists in all domains including the software development field. A very few companies in the software development domain have succeeded to bridge the wage gap between men and women. Salesforce is one of those companies that pay a Salesforce programmer equally irrespective of any gender bias.
Let’s have a look at different aspects of gender pay gap trends across the world and how major companies like Salesforce overcame this problem in this piece of writing.
Salary Trends in Tech Industry
There is a huge demand for tech-talent in all major countries across the world. The increasing demand for tech-talent has pushed the salary to hire a software developer very high. Many HR managers feel the heat of the shortage of IT professionals, especially software engineers.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics job outlook, the average growth of software developers jobs will increase by over 21%, which is much higher than the national average of about 5% during the period of 2018-2028. This huge growth is expected to grow a sharp uptrend in the software developer salary in the future. A substantial uptrend in salaries ranging from 6% to 9% was observed in all major cities of the world such as London, Paris, Boston, Austin, Washington DC, and others, according to the State of Salary 2019 survey report.
A huge surge of over 13% in the salary to hire software developers in London, UK was observed in 2020. This is a huge increase, which is much higher than other major IT hubs like Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and others. A significant uptrend in junior software developer salary is very imminent in numerous IT hubs such as Silicon Valley, Boston, and others in the USA. Campus hiring plays a vital role in the salary uptrend for junior positions.
The growth in senior software developer salary is much faster than many other roles in the field of information technology. The average salary of a senior software engineer in the USA is about $119,651 per annum. The 75th percentile is about $135,000 and the 25th percentile is $100,000.
The technology pay scale index in the US has been consistently increasing during many years, especially during the past couple of years as shown in the PayScale chart. The year over year growth has always been more than 3.1%, according to the PayScale salary trends.
Major Issues Faced by Women While Entering into Tech Industry
According to a report published in Forbes, more than 56% of the women in the technological field leave their working roles in mid-level careers. There are numerous reasons, which are based on gender discrimination in the field of technology for such horrific statistics. The situation in developing countries in Asia and Africa is even worse in terms of women’s role in the field of information technology, especially in software development. Female software developers constitute about 18% of the full population of software developers in the USA as shown in the graph.
The main challenges faced by women in the male-dominated field of information and communication technology ICT are listed below.
- Unconscious bias – All of our societies have been male-dominated for generations. Though a substantial improvement has occurred in the general behavior of the workforce in the tech field, still unconscious bias exists in different forms and manifestations such as lesser attention, valuing ideas, doubting abilities for any tough task, and others. According to the Women In Technology survey, more than 20% of the women complain of unconscious bias at work in the tech field.
- Sexual advances at the workplace – More than 60% of the women at work feel unwanted sexual advances and harassments, which pose a serious challenge for many women at work to maintain their performance, attention, and confidence.
- Restarting work after a break – The field of technology changes with the fastest speed with new technologies, trends, and tools emerging every day. A large number of women in the IT field struggle to synchronize with modern technology trends after a long break. Longer breaks also reduce the chances of getting new jobs.
- Maintaining a balance between home and work life – One of the toughest challenges for women in the tech field is balancing their work-life and home-life. More than 32% of the women in the IT field believe that maintaining balancing between the two lives is a big challenge for them, according to the Women-In-Tech survey.
- Skill and career development – Women in work face challenges of career development due to multiple breaks and divided minds between home and work lives.
Men vs. Women Salary Comparison in a Few Major Countries
Many research reports from national and international organizations suggest a significant disparity in the salaries of men and women in the tech field. Women earn less than men whether it is software, database, or even web developer salary in the IT field.
The disparity in software developer salaries between men and women in different countries across the world is shown in the following table.
| Name of Country | Average Salary of a Software Developer | |
| Men Developer | Women Developer | |
| UK | $40,908 | $35,385 |
| Switzerland | $105,055 | $88,246 |
| France | $45,690 | $39,521 |
| USA | $86,523 | $77,964 |
| Brazil | $10,913 | $8,675 |
| Israel | $74,358 | $64,319 |
| India | $6,566 | $4,924 |
| Germany | $59,049 | $51,077 |
| UAE | $20,200 | $19,100 |
| Ukraine | $24,000 | $18,912 |
| Note: The gender-based pay-gap in all OECD countries i.e. UK, Switzerland, France, Israel, Germany, and others, is about 13.5% (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf) | ||
The difference in salaries between women and men developers ranges up to 25% or so. In OECD countries the gap is on an average of about 13.5%. The gender-based wage gap in Switzerland is about 16% while the same gap in the USA is about 9.99%. The salary gap between men and women is over 20.5% while this gap reaches 25% in India. Technology companies in the UAE pay women developers about 5.7% less than the male developers. The gender pay gap in Ukraine is about 21.2%.
How Did Salesforce Bridge the Gap between Men and Women Salaries?
Numerous studies suggest that a satisfied and diverse tech-talent team consisting of male, female, and people from different races and cultures increase the productivity of the team significantly. Salesforce achieved this by bridging the gender pay gap and hiring a diverse team at work.
Salesforce implemented numerous financial and technical steps to achieve this goal. A few of them are listed below.
- Conducting impartial salary surveys in all global offices;
- Implementing multiple bold pay adjustments costing millions of dollars;
- Developing an environment suitable for gender-neutral teams;
- Conducting regular training and mentoring programs;
- Developing gender-neutral job descriptions for the hiring process;
- Implementing Salesforce Interview Feedback Tool (SIFT) system for staff recruitment;
- Implementing gender-neutral promotion and progress principle;
- Implementing parental leave of 26 weeks for all employees irrespective of their gender;
- Asking no question regarding past salaries during the interviews for recruitment;
- Implementing an equal compensation planning process for maintaining gender-neutral evaluation;
- Starting the policy of gender and race base attrition evaluation in appraisals;
- Providing a level playing field for all employees competing for higher positions;
- Discouraging unconscious bias and behavior within the employees;
- And many others.
A few years back, Salesforce had about a 5% wage gap between men and women in the company. After a few years of consistent work based on the above-mentioned steps, the company has reached an almost equal pay structure for all employees of the company irrespective of gender, race, and religion.
Final Takeaway
The demand for software developers is increasing consistently, which is triggering a huge competition in the companies to hire the best developer in the market at higher salaries. The cost to hire a developer is continuously increasing but the gap between men and women developers is also increasing, which is a big concern in almost all countries of the world. The gender pay gap is about 25% in some of the countries, which need to address this problem aggressively. Salesforce Inc is a major example of establishing parity in salaries of women and men developers.