It’s hardly a secret that the tech sector is struggling with diversity. Despite pledging for many years to ensure people of all ethnicities are represented and paid equally, it seems as if this problem is far from resolved. In fact, minority tech workers are offered smaller pay packages than their white peers, according to new research from Hired, the tech-recruitment platform.
Having looked at what people earn in different tech hubs around the globe, the platform reveals that white workers in the sector on average get offered $136,000 per year. In comparison, Asian employees get offers of $133,000, which drops to £131,000 for hispanic ones. Black workers were offered the lowest average salary at $130,000. While it’s difficult to determine exactly what the cause of this discrepancy is, a clue could be that people from different ethnicities seemingly have lower expectations in terms of salary. For instance, white tech workers’ preferred salary was at $130,000 but that number slumped to $127,000 for Asian employees and to $124,000 for both black and hispanic workers.
The research also revealed how pay packages differ in various tech hubs around the world. Given that tech giants like Facebook, Google and Apple are all based in Silicon Valley, the area unsurprisingly led the salary rankings with the average tech worker earning $142,000. While this represents a 6.8% increase between 2015 and 2017, not all hubs around the world can boast similar pay jumps. During the same period, the average tech salaries in London decreased from $94,000 to $78,000, representing a drop of more than 17%. This means that, after local living costs are taken into account, a software engineer in London can expect to make 42% less than those in San Francisco and 28% less than those in New York.
Commenting on the slumping British salaries, Gordon Smith, head of UK at Hired, said: “While the UK’s tech sector is still booming relative to the rest of the economy, there is still plenty of work to do if the UK wants to retain its status as a global tech leader. Employers and politicians alike must work together to make Britain a more attractive place to carve out a tech career, particularly in light its exit from the European Union, while candidates must not be afraid to ask for what they’re worth.“
From dropping salaries to issues with diversity, the tech sector is certainly not without challenges to tackle. 
