San Francisco’s Fin Tech Biz Seems To Have A Gender Problem

Great news for people who want to get in on the booming fin tech scene in San Francisco. There are jobs galore, according to new research.

However, in the city that is the global fin tech capital, female applicants will likely find the odds massively stacked against them when they look for a job in that industry, data show.

“The FinTech tech talent market in San Francisco is currently at a red-hot stage; hiring is constantly operating at a furious pace, with tech professionals often getting multiple job offers at any single time,” states the report from specialist recruitment firm Robert Walters (RW.)

Chief product officers, which apparently in great demand in the Bay area, can expect to get upwards of $260,000 a year in compensation, the report states.

While that’s an enticing officer, only three in 10 of San Francisco’s fin tech employees are women. Men account for 72% of the fin tech workforce in SF, and women a mere 28%, the research shows.

Big Apple With Even Bigger Problems

If you think that’s bad then brace yourself for what New York has to offer to women: Its even worse. However, you wouldn’t know it reading the blurb from RW which reads in part as follows:

• “FinTech companies in New York on the whole, are looking for FinTech tech professionals across all role types and skillsets, with product managers experiencing a significant demand.”

All that may be true, but it doesn’t address the issue of why women are even less well represented in the industry in the Big Apple than they are in San Francisco. Men account for 75% of the city’s fin tech employees with women making up just one in four of the industry’s workforce, the report says.

While the odds of women getting a job look statistically lower in New York, the salaries are higher. A chief product officer can expect to fetch $300,000 or more, the RW data show. In simple terms, it’s a double whammy for women.

Worse in Britain

You might hope that it’s better across the pond in the UK where they also speak English, albeit of a different flavor. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true.

In London, slightly more than one-in-five (22%) fin tech employees are women. The rest are men. Put another way, women face even more challenging odds of joining the fin tech glitterati if they sail/fly east over the Atlantic.

The RW report doesn’t list a salary for London-based product officers.

And even worse, the weather can be meh in London, Europe’s financial capital.

Question to fin tech leaders: When will you grow up?