Emerging US FDI companies in Dublin are exceeding the industry average gender balance at all stages of their scaling lifecycle. 

It is widely considered that in the technology industry, the average for female representation sits between 25–30% globally with other estimates suggesting that much lower percentages of technology roles in the EU are occupied by women. This has long been an issue for the technology community and is one with which the tech industry and companies are looking to grapple still. 

In our recent analysis of prominent scaling FDIs in Dublin we found the female representation was greater than 30% through the seed, core and grow stages with a high of 48%. In the grow stage, as the company has scaled to 20+ employees and has established its presence locally we saw over 40% female representation.

This is excellent news for companies looking to Ireland as a potential international base as it demonstrates the depth and quality of female talent available and the opportunity for companies to pursue gender balance as they scale. Looking closer, while as expected there was significant representation in sales, marketing and ops functions, female representation could be found across all functions in these companies including engineering, product and executive roles.

This is encouraging as companies can increase their diversity across all functions and recognise the value and talent that women can bring across a variety of skill sets. Increasingly, companies are taking a stand and adopting gender balanced approaches with one FDI Wrike being a shining example of this in Dublin recently. From their success, it is evident that the talent is there and with the right ambition and policies companies can pursue gender balance. 

Clearly from our analysis,  Wrike is not the exception and instead companies coming to Ireland from the US are recognising the female talent pool in the local ecosystem and bringing them into their company to help them scale and grow. 

These talent pools are being strengthened through action taken by the community with numerous initiatives in Ireland and Dublin including Women ReBoot, WITS, CWIT, Women who Code, and many others which look to encourage women and promote gender balance and equality who would be happy to see these results. Closer to home at Verify, female representation in technology has long been close to our heart and ultimately led to the creation of our own Ada Lovelace Initiative launched in 2015. This initiative focuses on the concept of if you can’t see it you can’t be it and looks to pair female role models from the technical community with students to share their own experience and story.

The depth and quality of the female talent pool in Ireland can and should be a big draw for FDI moving forward in looking to create a more balanced workforce. They can safely come to Dublin knowing it has been done before and that the talent, culture and ambition are here. 

Ultimately, this creates a self-fulfilling cycle where the female talent pool strengthens and representation of women in tech companies grows and attracts even more FDIs to our shores. 

Look out for our upcoming release detailing why FDIs choose Dublin to grow a great team.