Building up Black tech talent

There is a dearth of Black workers in tech jobs in America. Although Black people comprise 12 percent of the US workforce, only 8 percent of employees in tech jobs are Black, find senior partner Mark McMillan, partner Jan Shelly Brown, and colleagues. The percentage shrinks even more up the corporate ladder; only 3 percent of technology executives in the C-suite are Black, and that gap is likely to widen over the next decade.

Black talent is underrepresented in the fastest-growing technical roles.

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A series of 15 pie charts show different roles in the technology industry, and the estimated percentage of Black workers in each of those roles. Each pie chart has a line at 12%, representing the average share of Black talent in the overall workforce, and shows where certain technology roles fall against that line. Black employees are well below that line in roles such as software development, data science, and web development. The share of Black workers aligns with the 12% overall workforce figure or is higher than that in roles such as network support, IT project management, and cybersecurity.

Source: State of the tech workforce, CompTIA, Mar 2022

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To read the article, see “How to close the Black tech talent gap,” February 3, 2023.