Most women working in European startups are satisfied with their jobs, according to newly published survey data.
While women account for 42% of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) students in Europe, that number drops closer to 30% in the workplace. In recent weeks, different studies have shown serious declines in the number of women entrepreneurs in Britain and a widening gender pay gap in Germany.
In a survey of 227 women conducted by Sifted, 59.5% of respondents said they were ‘happy’ or ‘very happy’ with their current roles, while just under a third (32.1%) said they plan to stay in their current roles for three years or more.
Despite this, 48% of respondents said their work-related stress has increased in the last year, while 37% said it had stayed the same.
The majority (51%) of respondents said the primary reason for their stress was increased responsibility at work. The other top reasons included a lack of career progression opportunities (49%) and inadequate compensation (48%).
Women at the top aren’t immune to these challenges: 30.8% of survey respondents were senior managers, 16% are cofounders and 14.5% are C-suite executives.
The ability to work from home and flexible working hours were among the most common workplace benefits respondents enjoyed.
One respondent said: “Flexible hours have made the biggest difference in my working life. I have never felt so happy with my work-life balance and at the same time been so productive without burning out. If I ever started my own company I would make it a pillar of our benefits package.”
However, the gender imbalance at startups remains a concern: half of respondents said they were working at companies where fewer than a quarter of C-suite members are women or non-binary people. Several respondents also mentioned disliking the “bro culture” nature of their workplace.
Seven respondents to our survey identify as non-binary; we’ve included their responses in a separate section below.
Startup Life
Many of the challenges causing respondents stress at work have appeared in previous Sifted workplace surveys: poor communication, frustrations with leadership and unclear decision-making.
“New role at new company, new culture. High demands, regular changes of direction and lots of opinions. Decision makers unclear,” said one respondent about why her stress levels have increased in the last twelve months.
Other respondents said political and economic uncertainty is generally making things harder for startups; some reported difficulties fundraising, others said they fear layoffs are looming in their organisations.
“The geopolitical environment drives feelings of instability” in the workplace, said one respondent.
Inadequate compensation was another significant issue for women in startups — a factor that came up in Sifted’s 2024 women in tech survey as a key reason why women were leaving their jobs last year.
Some respondents in this year’s survey said they are paid below the market standard; some female executives said they are paid less than their male counterparts.
The unadjusted pay gap — which calculates average earnings of men and women without taking into account external factors like which country they work in and what job they do — stands at 24% in European tech, according to the latest figures from compensation benchmarking platform Ravio.
Others detailed their frustrations at working in male dominated environments; one respondent said she is frustrated by “not being heard.”
Another said dealing with “subtle and not so subtle misogyny” has increased her stress levels in the past year.
Discrimination
42% of women surveyed said they have experienced discrimination in the workplace on a few occasions; 18.9% said they experience it regularly; and 39.2% said they’ve never experienced it.
“I have been asked if I will have children soon, I’m disrespected by entitled men in management, and my work is overlooked. I am the only woman in the senior leadership team,” said one respondent.
One woman who is expecting said she fears for her future career prospects: “I am currently pregnant, therefore feel trapped in a workplace I am not happy at as I feel like no one will want to hire a pregnant woman.”
Another said examples of discrimination were brought up to the founders of the company she works at “on multiple occasions” and were dismissed.
Just over a third (35.7%) of respondents said if they were to look for a new job, they would look for employers that directly address discrimination in their organisations.
Commitment to DEI
Since the start of the economic downturn, there have been fears of European tech companies rolling back DEI initiatives in part to save cash. To find out if this matches reality, we asked respondents what the status of their company’s commitment to DEI is.
More than half (57.2%) of respondents said their companies had not walked back on their DEI efforts. 23.3% said they weren’t sure.
“DEI is vital and is not going to go away for us, ever. For sure!” wrote one respondent. “I am a female founder, I set the culture and it’s one of voice and empowerment for women and minorities,” said another.
Others said their company does not have a dedicated DEI policy, so there has been no noticeable change.
“I don’t think special care is given to women or non binary staff, nor are they actively discriminated against. But in a male dominated culture without active efforts, unintentional sidelining, undermining etc is inevitable without deliberate interventions,” wrote one respondent.
Of the 19.5% who said their company’s DEI efforts have been reduced, many cited budget cuts and a drive for profitability across all areas of the organisation as the reason.
“The employee count has reduced due to people leaving the company, and the people who were driving DEI initiatives have left and the leadership do not care to pick it up and I don’t think they’re aware of the importance,” said one respondent. “There are no active decisions to drive a more inclusive workforce, and the female employees have left at a high rate.”
Yet respondents also pointed out that for a company to actually address issues with diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI initiatives are no silver bullet.
One respondent said her company’s “DEI effort has not diminished [over the past 12 months], but subtle cultural signals continue to suggest unequal treatment” for women in particular.
“The work seems more like checkbox exercises than truly getting to the root of a systemic problem,” another said.
What can make workplaces better?
Some respondents are confident their workplaces are already doing a pretty good job of making an equitable workplace, with one respondent saying she “cannot think what she would change”.
Respondents who did want their companies to take action said increasing representation of women and non-binary people in leadership was the number one thing that would improve the workplace for them.
One respondent said she would be attracted to a new company by “inspirational female leadership, as that has hugely shaped my career and made me believe I can do it too.”
Improving pay equity was another biggie — and many women said they would look for better remuneration in their next jobs.
Flexible working conditions — particularly in relation to where women can work from — and opportunities for professional progression were also repeatedly mentioned as factors that would pull women to new jobs. This may explain why a perceived lack of career progression was repeatedly cited among those planning to leave their jobs this year.
Others spoke about wanting more progressive workplace environments: “One where inclusion is not just a statement but part of how people interact every day,” one respondent said. Training on unconscious bias was mentioned multiple times as something women want from new or current employees.
Another added she wanted to work for a company that would “walk the talk.” An example she gave was making “investment in women and women of color.”
How are non-binary people feeling?
The survey’s seven non-binary respondents painted a polarised picture of their feelings at work: 43% of participants said they were either ‘very unhappy’ or ‘unhappy’ at work, while an equal proportion reported being ‘happy’ or ‘very happy.’ Just one described themselves as feeling ‘neutral.’
Stress levels appear to be a concern with 72% of respondents saying their work-related stress had either increased or remained the same over the last twelve months.
Encouragingly, however, the same proportion — 72% — said they had never felt discriminated against at work due to their gender identity.
On how workplaces could be a better place for non-binary people to work, one respondent said “Have safe spaces for non-binary people in the work place.”
Another succinctly suggested “meritocracy.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/women-in-tech-survey-2025/
