Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a top 3 global IT services company announced this January that more than 200,000 of its 500,000 headcount is female.

TCS is not the only Indian IT services company ramping up its female engineering bench strength. Women make up 34% of the total IT workforce in India (versus 25% in the U.S.).

India’s IT industry contributes more than 7% to GDP, employs more than 4 million in India, and is actively expanding local hires in 80 countries. What do India’s IT giants know about the skills women engineers offer that others can learn? 

For decades, rising to the top for an engineer was largely dependent on exemplary technical skills. While strong engineering prowess remains prerequisite, employers today want more. 

Some of the Most Wanted Skills now relate to efficiency and agility – these skills make a team and organization run effectively. Being able to work well in teams, communicating and collaborating across borders, being able to manage meetings effectively, taking ownership and being willing to question status quo - are some skills that are as important as technical abilities in a world where top-down command and control structures are giving way to inclusive, collaborative ways of working. 

Analyzing 3 years of skills data from thousands of engineers across 50 countries we’ve trained in our human skills programme, Global Business Skills, we found a consistent pattern of female engineers excelling over male counterparts overall, and specifically in several Most Wanted Skills: 

• Communicating and collaborating
• How to Say No
• Critical Thinking
• Professionalism (incorporating accountability, responsibility and attention to detail)
• Managing time – including in meetings!
  

A higher proportion of top performers (certified with distinction) are women. And, most important of all – women are more engaged learners, consistently hitting every engagement metric we track – and illustrating that they are high on learning agility. 

Let’s get ready to be engineered by women!

If you’d like to get valuable, actionable insight on what vital Future Skills your engineers bring to the table and how to upskill them in Most Wanted Skills, talk to us.