Lizzy McDowell, co-founder of Critical Careers and Director of Marketing at Kao Data, examines what new salary data reveals about pay, progression and trust for women working in digital infrastructure.

When I was asked to comment on this year’s DataX Connect Data Centre Salary Survey, I didn’t expect one statistic to still be sitting with me some weeks later.

Half of the women who contributed to the survey say their gender has affected their pay or career progression.

Just 1.7% of men say the same.

Of the women who felt that impact, every single one described it as negative. That’s less a story about pay than a story about whether these women trust the process that decided their pay.

I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that most people will read a statistic like that, give it a nod, and move on with their day. I don’t intend to let it go that easily, especially given that DataX Connect added these gender and progression questions to the survey this year precisely because last year’s findings demanded a closer look.

The smallest room in the industry

Only one in 11 respondents to this survey were women. That ratio is one I recognise from plenty of rooms across this sector, and it’s the reason that the UK section of the report calls women an ‘untapped talent pool’ rather than treating under 10% as a fixed limit.

With a group that small, these findings deserve a proper look inside your own organisation rather than being taken as gospel from someone else’s report. That doesn’t make what follows any less worth reading.

The gap widens as you climb, not shrinks

I grew up believing that seniority was supposed to be the great equaliser, that the further you climbed, the less your gender had to do with what you were paid.

However, the findings in this survey show that men in mid-level roles averaged £80k against £76k for women, a gap of around 5%. At senior level, that gap nearly quadrupled to 22%, with men averaging £106k against £83k for women. Bonuses told the same story, with men’s payouts almost 28% larger.

I’m not going to pretend these averages prove a woman and a man in an identical role at the same company are paid unequally, because they don’t control for things like location or tenure, and the sample of women is small. But I don’t need airtight proof to know that a gap that grows rather than shrinks with seniority should be taken seriously. If you’ve ever told a junior woman on your team that things get fairer once she’s proven herself, I’d encourage you to think again.

Satisfied is not the same as trusted

Pay isn’t only about what someone can afford; it’s one of the clearest signals an organisation can send about how much it values a person’s work, and women in this sector are often left decoding that whilst their male colleagues never really have to.

I’ve spoken to women who are entirely comfortable with the number on their payslip but still can’t shake the feeling that the process behind it wasn’t built with them in mind. Being comfortable with the outcome and trusting how it was reached are two different questions, and an organisation that only asks the first one is missing the answer that predicts whether someone stays.

I’d also gently push back on anyone tempted to write this off as an older generation’s grievance that’ll fade with time. Across the survey, 12% of 18- to 35-year-olds said gender had affected their pay, against 15% of those over 35. That’s a smaller gap between the generations than I expected, and not in a reassuring way.

What actually keeps people here

Pay is rarely the only reason why someone decides to leave. Career development consistently comes up as a bigger reason across this sector, and that’s not a coincidence when it comes to women specifically. A pay rise doesn’t answer the harder question sitting underneath it, which is whether someone believes they’ll be given the same shot at growth as everyone else on the team.

The report itself points employers towards visible representation and mentoring alongside stronger progression pipelines, and puts weight on ensuring the senior women who succeed are genuinely seen rather than quietly supported in the background. Seeing a senior woman succeed signals to a younger woman that she belongs here.

An invitation

If you’re a woman who has ever quietly wondered whether your gender played a part in what you’re paid or how far you’ve climbed, you’re far from alone.

Critical Careers exists to ensure we keep having open conversations like this, rather than leaving them to sit quietly in the pages of a report. We’ll keep asking the uncomfortable questions, because women in this industry deserve equality, not just acknowledgement.

See you next month.