New Report: Men in High-Tech Earn Approximately 44% More Than Women, While Female Enrollment in Tech Fields More Than Doubles
Gaps in pay, leadership, and entrepreneurship persist, even as number of female students in high-tech fields increases by 116% over past decade
The Israel Innovation Authority today released a new report examining the status of women in Israeli high-tech, highlighting growth alongside persistent structural gaps. The report shows that while the number of female students in high-tech disciplines has increased by 116% over the past decade and the number of women in R&D roles has more than doubled, women still represent only about 34% of the high-tech workforce and continue to face substantial disparities in salary, management representation, and entrepreneurship.
Women in high-tech earns on average approximately NIS 23,000 per month, compared to approximately NIS 33,000 among men, a gap of 44%, or roughly NIS 10,200 per month. Significant gaps persist even within the same occupational categories. In R&D roles, men’s salaries are 44% higher than those of women; in headquarters roles, the gap reaches 48%; and at management levels, disparities are even more pronounced. These figures demonstrate that wage gaps do not stem solely from differences in occupational choice, but from a combination of barriers to advancement, representation in management, and access to decision-making centers.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel: “The report presents a situation that requires attention on several fronts. I will convene a meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Innovation to provide a holistic response to the issues raised in the report.”
Dror Bin, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority, said: “The data clearly show that the challenge lies in structural barriers that accompany women throughout their career path, from high school through integration into high-tech. These barriers begin with subject choices in school, continue through academic studies and entry into R&D roles, and extend to promotion, management, and salary levels. Israeli high-tech relies on high-quality human capital. If a significant portion of this capital is not fully realized, the growth and innovation potential of the economy is also affected. Reducing these gaps is not only a social objective, but a clear economic interest for Israel.”
In 2025, based on data from the first three quarters of the year, approximately 135,000 women were employed in Israeli high-tech, representing only about 34% of the sector’s workforce. This share has remained largely unchanged over the past three decades. Despite rapid overall employment growth in the sector over the past decade, the relative share of women has remained almost static. Between 2015 and 2025, the number of women employed in high-tech increased by approximately 61%, yet the number of men grew at a similar rate, leaving the proportional gap essentially unchanged. At the same time, following a decade of gradual increase, the share of women employed in high-tech out of the total number of employed women in the economy has plateaued and remained stable in recent years.
The gaps begin well before entry into the labor market. In 2024, only 34.5% of students taking the five-unit matriculation exam in computer science were female. Although the number of female examinees grew by approximately 40% between 2017 and 2021, growth has stalled since then, both in absolute numbers and relative share. This stagnation contrasts with near gender parity in the five-unit mathematics examination. Among male students, 72% of those taking five-unit mathematics also take five-unit computer science, compared to only 41% among female students. Sectoral gaps are already visible at this stage: within the Jewish education system, the share of boys taking five-unit computer science is 2.5 times higher than the share of girls in both the Jewish and Arab education systems.
In academia, steady but gradual growth is evident. In the 2024–2025 academic year, women accounted for approximately 34% of students in high-tech disciplines at universities and colleges, compared to only about 24% at the beginning of the previous decade. Since 2010, the number of female students in high-tech fields has increased by 116%, driven largely by a sharp rise in computer science enrollment, which tripled to approximately 6,000 female students in the 2024–2025 academic year. However, in core engineering disciplines, women remain significantly underrepresented, comprising about 23% of electrical engineering students and approximately 18% in mechanical engineering.
For the first time, the report examines women’s employment in high-tech by age group. Among individuals aged 25–34, women represent nearly 40% of high-tech employees, a relatively high proportion compared to other age groups. However, only about 10% of all employed women in this age group work in high-tech, compared to approximately 15% of men. As age increases, the share of women in the sector declines consistently. This suggests that although younger cohorts show higher integration rates, there is no certainty that this trend will translate into long-term structural change.
Most employment growth in high-tech has occurred in R&D roles, yet gaps remain evident there as well. In 2025, approximately 55,000 women were employed in R&D positions, representing 28.4% of all employees in those roles. Although their number more than doubled over the past decade, their relative share increased only gradually. Women represent approximately 31.8% of employees in product roles, and their representation is higher in headquarters roles. However, significant gaps persist at senior management levels. Women account for approximately 16% of development managers and fewer than 11% of startup CEOs.
Disparities in entrepreneurship and capital raising are also substantial: only about 8% of funding rounds in recent years were led by companies with female CEOs, representing approximately 4.6% of total capital raised.
Particularly acute disparities are evident in the integration of women from Ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab communities. Nearly 93% of women employed in high-tech are non-Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women represent approximately 5.5% of women employed in the sector, while Arab women account for less than 2%. While 1 in 5 Jewish men works in high-tech, only 1 in 100 Arab women is employed in the sector. Over time, however, growth rates within these groups have been relatively strong. The share of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women among total high-tech employees doubled from 0.9% in 2014 to 1.8% in 2025. The share of Arab women tripled from 0.2% in 2014 to 0.6% in 2025. Despite this accelerated growth, overall representation remains very low.
The Israel Innovation Authority emphasizes the need for a comprehensive, multi-stage approach, beginning with expanding high-tech education and subject selection in schools, strengthening academic training and workforce integration, promoting women to management and entrepreneurship roles, and increasing salary transparency within companies. In parallel, ongoing monitoring will be required to assess the future gender impact of artificial intelligence tools entering software development and other core roles.
As long as women are not integrated into high-tech and its key decision-making centers at significantly higher rates, Israel forfeits a substantial portion of its existing talent, ideas, and innovative capacity. Fully realizing human capital is essential to maintaining the global leadership of Israeli high-tech and strengthening long-term economic growth.
This year, the Israel Innovation Authority continued and expanded dedicated support mechanisms for women in high-tech, foremost among them the benefit for women entrepreneurs under the Startup Fund, a central program designed for early-stage companies. Under this fund, increased investment rates are granted to startups and companies led by women, with the objective of reducing capital access gaps at the pre-seed and seed stages, lowering risk for women entrepreneurs, and enabling greater leverage of private investment.
This tool is not a one-time initiative, but a broad structural mechanism intended to influence women’s entry point into technological entrepreneurship and increase the number of companies founded and led by women.
In parallel, the Authority continued to lead the TECH 50:50 initiative, which brings together more than 200 representatives from industry, academia, and the public sector to formulate systemic steps to reduce gender gaps.
Additionally, a dedicated deep-tech CEO training program was launched, in which 20 senior female executives participated. Of these, eight were appointed to CEO positions within months of completing the program, reflecting a direct impact on female representation in senior leadership roles.