We're Not Losing Women in STEM Industries - We're Failing to Grow Them

The real barrier for women isn't getting in the door - it's climbing the ladder once they're inside.

By Ntsiki Woco, Chief Human Resources Officer, MetroFibre

South Africa's fibre connectivity industry is at the heart of a phenomenal boom. Artificial intelligence, hyperscale data centres, and the infrastructure to support all of it depend on one thing before anything else: connectivity. Fibre sits at the heart of this connectivity, as the physical backbone underneath every transaction, every stream, every byte of data that moves through business, society and the economy.

It's an industry I've spent the better part of two decades in and I've watched it go from something almost nobody outside the sector understood, to an industry people now recognise, respect, and increasingly want to build a career in. This shifts the conversation we need to be having about women in this space. For years, the default explanation for why so few women reach senior technical and leadership roles in the ICT industry has been framed as a retention problem. On the surface of it, the national data tells a version of this story too.

Women now make up around 41% of South Africa's ICT workforce, up from roughly 39.5% just two years earlier, and entry-level intake into digital skills programmes and junior technical roles is now close to balanced between men and women1. But it’s when you move up the ladder that this picture changes radically.

Women hold only around a quarter of core technical roles such as software development, network engineering, cybersecurity, and just 5% of South African ICT companies are led by women. Across the African continent, women make up nearly half of all STEM graduates yet end up in less than a third of tech roles, and fewer than 12% of tech leadership positions2.

It's not a retention problem. It's a progress and growth problem.

Getting the front door right

Retention of women in STEM and ICT careers is not the challenge we face. We are retaining them - we're just retaining them in our support and administrative structures, in the roles they started in. Where it falls flat is getting women into the technical career progression and the ladder that takes them from entry level into management and leadership roles. The biggest challenge our ICT industries face isn't losing female talent. It's failing to grow it. It's not enough to get the front door right if the staircase inside the building doesn't lead anywhere.

To be fair, the front door to a career in the ICT sector has significantly improved, and learnership and internship programmes are a big driver of this. They've been one of the most effective tools we have for attracting young women into tech roles, notably in the fibre connectivity sector.

MetroFibre sponsors three learnership cohorts each year: one is an employed learnership for our own staff, providing meaningful career and skills progression that takes the business and our people forward. Two are unemployed learnerships, one of which is a cohort of women, and another for people living with disabilities. Both train participants in ICT-related disciplines essential to the fibre connectivity industry.

We're also long-standing partners in the YES4Youth programme. Between 2019 and 2025, across six cohorts, 126 young people from the programme were placed into permanent jobs in the sector, with our 2026 cohort targeting 30 more. Female representation per cohort has climbed steadily, from 45% up to 69%, and our 2026 intake is tracking toward 75% women. Of those placed through the programme, 77 went into permanent roles within MetroFibre itself, and 65 of them are still with us today; others have moved on into roles elsewhere in the industry, which is its own kind of success. The point of entry for women into our industry is being solved. But it cannot end there.

The staircase, and where it narrows

There are real structural barriers to be overcome for women in technical roles. For example, in the fibre sector, we have technician positions, entry-level roles that a graduate or intern can step straight into. The role requires mostly time out in the field, building the hands-on experience needed to become a fully-fledged fibre technician capable of leading and managing teams of your own. That's also where it gets much harder for women specifically. Field work means working at night or in locations that carry real safety and security risk, and women technicians face those risks differently, and more acutely, than their male colleagues do.

Recognising the unique safety risks that exist in certain field environments, MetroFibre has implemented operational controls and support mechanisms to ensure women can access the same developmental opportunities and field experience required for career progression.

Where we have female technicians and team leaders, we pair them into teams alongside male counterparts, and where our risk assessments call for it, we bring in additional security support. Our team structures are built around making sure safety concerns don't become the reason a woman's career stalls. It isn't a perfect solution, and it's one we keep adjusting as circumstances change. But we’re resolute that women should not be held back from full technical progression because we failed to plan around a risk we know exists in our industry.

Beyond technician roles, we're seeing more women move into systems development and network engineering. But even there, the senior and top management remain dominated by men. These are legacy barriers, decades of an industry built and led almost entirely by men, and legacy doesn't unwind itself quickly. Change is happening, albeit not fast enough yet.

The Role of Mentorship, Culture and Leadership

ICT remains a heavily male-dominated industry, and one of the hardest things for a woman coming in at entry level is finding the guidance and mentorship that turns a job into a career - the kind of relationship that helps someone see a path from where they are to where they want to be, and that opens doors they wouldn't otherwise know existed. As an industry, we have an opportunity to be more deliberate in creating the pathways that help women move from entry-level roles into technical and leadership careers.

At MetroFibre, we've tried to build it into the way we operate from day one. Learners in our programmes are coached and mentored from the start. As people move up, we run a formal mentoring programme that matches emerging talent with senior, experienced mentors and coaches across the business. It's voluntary on both sides - mentors have to be at a certain level of seniority and experience, and mentees opt in – and it's open to every employee who wants to be matched into their specific field and career ambitions. Alongside that, we actively identify and nominate promising young talent for the opportunities that put them in front of the right people, at the right time, to progress.

Our fibre industry doesn't have a shortage of women wanting in, and it isn't losing the women it brings through the door. What it needs to build and show consistently and at scale, is what comes next, the staircase for women in technical roles, from entry-level hire into senior leader.

Building pathways for women is not solely the responsibility of women leaders. It requires managers, mentors and sponsors across the organization to actively create opportunities, transfer knowledge and advocate for emerging female talent. As participants in a rapidly growing fibre industry, we alone can do the people, culture and technical work that lays strong foundations where women can build the confidence, capability and skills to build their careers over time, to understand how the skills they gain today actually translate into their career futures, and to adapt and respond to change in one of the most defining technologies of our time – fibre connectivity.

Ends….

References

https://www.iitpsa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024-IITPSA-ICT-Skills-Survey-and-Research-Report.pdf

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/closing-the-loop-the-quest-for-gender-parity-in-african-tech