Gender wage gap persists in remote IT roles, survey finds

Women working in remote tech jobs are more likely to experience a wider gender wage gap according to a survey published by US recruitment firm Hired.

Drawing on its database of 3,900 firms and 120,000 jobseekers in US, UK and Canada, Hired’s 2022 State of Wage Inequality in the Tech Industry found that remote women workers received on average $0.96 to every $1 salary of their male counterparts.

The survey, which is based on the findings from over 819,000 respondents, also measured employees’ wage expectation gap: the difference in preferred salary.

It revealed that while remote female workers are paid less than remote male workers, their salary expectations are often exceeded – women were happy to settle at $0.95 to every $1 their male counterparts asked for.

These findings are likely to fuel concerns of a proximity bias developing between remote and on site positions – something TechInformed examines in its WomenInWork report.

Hired’s survey also found that race contributed to the expectation gap with Hispanic women and Black only expecting $0.91 to every $1 salary of their white male counterparts.

Overall, Hired found that the gender wage gap was lowest in the US (1.6%) and highest in the UK (2.8%).

Elsewhere there were signs of progress being made: the survey found a sizeable decrease in the percentage of positions sending interview requests exclusively to men. In 2020, 42% of positions invited exclusively men for tech job interviews while in 2021 this fell to 37%.