Inclusivity: Is the UK government standing up for women in tech?

The role of women in tech has been making headlines recently. From the gender gap in the industry to the online abuse faced by women and girls, the challenges are increasingly visible. But so, too, are the opportunities — especially as greater inclusivity has been shown to drive innovation and growth.

The UK government has taken notice. A few weeks ago, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) launched the Women’s Tech Taskforce to improve inclusivity across the sector. Could this be a real turning point, or just another announcement?

Political context matters. In the UK, all parties face a rising challenge from Reform, whose flagship policies including the scrapping of all diversity and inclusion workstreams. Reform has been inspired in this effort by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): arguing for cost savings, especially in the public sector, but also against the damage which America’s MAGA movement, and its UK equivalent, believe such schemes have meant for conservative culture. In appointing a female Technology Secretary in the September reshuffle, and by making a policy announcement on inclusivity in the first couple of weeks, the Labour government has drawn a clear line in the sand: inclusivity is not optional, but forms a core part of its economic strategy.

Two themes dominate the discussion:

1. Improving inclusivity to drive growth

Women remain underrepresented across the tech workforce. According to the BCS Chartered Institute for IT, at the current rate it could take 283 years for women to achieve equal representation across the sector. Addressing this gap, particularly in digital skills, has been a long-running focus of industry; but government-led action has been limited until recently. Some industry initiatives, such as the City of London’s “Women Pivoting to Digital” Taskforce, launched in 2022, show how improving access to digital skills can improve equality in digital jobs. Newer initiatives, such as recently launched The Stack (a tool Inline is part of which identifies women working on tech issues, set up by the Women in Tech Policy) show how targeted support should help create visibility and opportunities. However, both of these are small moves that can be built on as policies are designed and implemented.

There is also an investment challenge. Research shows investing in female and minority-led businesses could increase the UK’s equity market by 13%. And the 2019 Rose Review confirmed that if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, the UK economy could see a boost of £250 billion. Yet female-founded businesses still attract just 2% of venture-capital funding, and only 13% of senior VC staff are women. The government has recognised this opportunity and the benefits it could have for growth. Over the summer, it pledged £500m for underrepresented entrepreneurs and reserved £50m for female-led VC funds. Alongside the British Business Bank’s Investing in Women Code, this is a significant development. But more work will be needed for the UK, and women, to see tangible results.

2. Making online spaces safer

The workplace itself is only half the story. Women continue to be disproportionately affected by harmful and illegal content online. The Institute of Development Studies found that over 58% of women globally have experienced some form of online harassment on social media compared to only 36% of men. The Online Safety Act does include specific provisions to tackle this; and yet a year into the Act, reported incidents of online abuse against women have continued to rise.

The problem could be structural. Adolescence, a hit Netflix show that came out earlier this year, highlighted how, in exploring an epidemic of alienation felt by young people in the UK and beyond, algorithms are increasingly pushing boys and young men towards extremist and misogynistic content. Evidence from the Alan Turing Institute shows this is true even when searching topics like fitness or sport. Social media use is high, with Ofcom’s Media Nation reporting that more than 84% of UK adults use social media each month — up to 94% for 15-24-year-olds — and more than half the population now relying on social media for news. This means toxic content is no longer niche: it’s becoming mainstream.

Women in public life face online abuse on an even higher level. Ofcom’s recent research into online abuse of female politicians shows a growing problem: one that is more frequent, more sophisticated and increasingly normalised. The recent defamation case regarding the UK and Irish anonymous gossip site Tattle Life is a case in point of the real-life harm online abuse can have. Finally, new technologies like AI are making it easier to produce harmful content. The use of generative AI to create sexually explicit deepfakes, in particular, has become a serious problem; a study by DeepTrace found that 96% of online deepfake videos are pornographic, with 99.9% depicting women.

The UK government is responding. Cyberflashing is now a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, and Ofcom is finalising guidance on creating a safer online environment for women and girls. Both of these moves will create legally binding requirements for online platforms. Questions remain, however, around how to enforce the Online Safety Act, and whether such measures will go far enough to tackle a growing cultural permissiveness towards online abuse. Industry has an opportunity to take leadership in this space by designing proportionate solutions that reduce harm while protecting innovation.

Wider considerations

The UK is not alone in tackling these challenges — yet risks falling behind if action is too slow, as other countries seek to improve inclusivity in tech. In June 2025, the EU placed gender equality at the heart of its Horizon Europe research funding by creating a dedicated Open Horizons fund for women. In September 2025, Canada expanded its multi-million-dollar fund to support women-led startups, including a new Thrive Fund.

The US, it is true, is taking a different course under the Trump administration — though even here, the official policy, and the response from industry, has not been monolithic. In line with the administration’s efforts to remove diversity and inclusion policies altogether from the federal government — and to pressure other institutions to do the same — Google and Meta have removed inclusivity workstreams and are taking steps to minimise filters reducing harmful content on their platforms. But Apple has refused to follow suit. And despite the Trump administration’s criticism of the UK’s Online Safety Act, President Trump in May 2025 signed the ‘‘Take it down’’ Act, outlawing revenge porn and deepfake image abuse, following bipartisan support from Congress.

Conclusion

Global competition for tech talent is fierce. If it does not offer a comparable, inclusive experience to its tech professionals, the UK could struggle to hire and maintain a highly skilled workforce. Government action is unlikely to be sufficient on its own. Industry can support and even lead the work: for example, with VC firms publishing funding data by gender; tech employers closing gender pay gaps; and online platforms setting industry standards for tackling harmful content.

These are areas Inline is passionate about. If you have any questions or would like to discuss ways of engaging with government on the role of women in tech, please don’t hesitate to contact us!