The Australian tech sector has strong foundations in place when it comes to gender diversity but still a lot of work to do to reach parity, according to a new report.

While women now make up just under half of the overall Australian tech workforce, they account for only 20 per cent of the highly technical workforce.

This is often because of structural issues such as workplace cultures, inflexible work practices and the absence of proper leadership.

The T-EDI Standards were officially launched in November 2024 to help Australian tech companies identify and close the various structural gaps in place that contribute to the underrepresentation of women.

They are based on 98 evidence-based standards across 10 categories, and were launched by Project F alongside the Tech Council of Australia, with inaugural partners including Atlassian, Culture Amp and Telstra.

The inaugural Impact Report 2025-26 outlines the results from the assessments of participating companies over the first 18 months of the project, which covers more than 900,000 Australian tech workers.

The organisations have self-assessed against the T-EDI standards through a browser-based app, which then generates a scored profile, prioritised action plan and practical implementation tools.

Still a long way to go

The report found the tech sector has the basic, foundational aspects in place, but is yet to implement the all-important next steps.

“This inaugural report is not a declaration of mission accomplished,” Project-F founder Emma Jones said in the report’s foreword.

“It is a starting point – an honest picture of where some of Australia’s most forward-thinking tech organisations stand today, and a marker against which we will measure progress every year from here.

“The problem is real, the opportunity is enormous, and the organisations who act now will be the ones who look back on this moment as the inflection point.”

The standards include hiring and pay equity, leadership accountability, flexible work design, parental leave and an inclusive culture.

The average maturity score for the assessed companies was just 52 per cent, indicating strong basic principles but significant opportunity for improvements.

“The structural foundations – policies, frameworks, defined ranges, stated commitments, are largely in place,” the report said.

“What’s missing is the final, deliberate step: the one that determines whether the work changes outcomes for the person it’s meant to help, in the moment that matters.”

A promising start

While just under four out of five of the companies have a diversity strategy in place with backing from the executive or board level, less than a quarter have a specific gender balance target locked in, and less than 40 per cent are holding company leaders to account if they don’t meet these targets.

And while the majority offer flexible work to their employees, only 15 per cent have redesigned roles for part-time work and have trained managers in how to best lead flexible teams.

More than 90 per cent of the assessed companies provide parental leave, but two-thirds are still using the “primary” and “secondary” career labels, which can disadvantage women.

“Because more than 72 per cent of primary carers are mothers, this distinction is not neutral: it structurally marks women as the parent expected to step back, with consequences for how they’re viewed for hiring, promotion, leadership and high-visibility roles,” the report said.

“Equal leave on paper isn’t equal in practice while these labels remain.”

Another area where Australian tech companies are still lagging is pay transparency.

While nearly all the companies have salary ranges defined by role-level internally, less than 40 per cent share these wage ranges with potential new employees, and almost none have removed the salary expectation question from interviews.

According to the report, half of the participating companies have made verifiable progress on gender equity over the last 18 months.

The latest government data on the gender pay gap within organisations revealed the situation had gotten worse at many major local tech firms.

This data doesn’t compare pay rate differences between men and women, but rather the difference between the average earnings of men and women within an employer or industry.

At Canva, the gender pay gap more than doubled to just over 27 per cent in 2024-25, with the company saying this was partly due to a lack of women in highly paid technical roles.

Under laws passed by the Australian Parliament early last year, large companies that fail to improve on gender equity targets will be named and shamed, and potentially lose Commonwealth contracts.