Australia’s 2025–26 Youth in STEM survey by YouthInsight explored young people’s awareness and perception of STEM subjects and careers.
The analysis below summarises findings from gender diverse young people in YouthInsight’s report.
Gender diverse analysis - interest, confidence and career aspirations in STEM
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You can use the data below to compare interest, confidence, barriers and career aspirations of gender diverse young people from the 2025–26 and 2023–24 surveys. Comparisons are made with all other survey participants.
Source: YouthInsight 2025–26
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The 2025–26 Youth in STEM research was a survey of 3,001 young people aged between 12 and 25 years. It was the fifth survey in the program, it followed Youth in STEM surveys in 2018–19, 2019–20, 2021–22 and 2023–24.
Gender diverse young people are those who responded 'non-binary' or 'I identify my gender as: (please specify)' at the gender question in the 2023–24 and 2025–26 Youth in STEM surveys. Comparisons above are with all other survey participants. This cohort includes people who identified as boy/man, girl/woman, or did not provide a response to the gender question.
The survey asked questions to understand young peoples’ awareness and perception of STEM subjects and careers. Survey participants came from all states and territories across Australia.
See further insights into this data in Youth perceptions and attitudes to STEM.
Our department commissioned YouthInsight to carry out this survey. In 2024–25 they surveyed parents, teachers and career advisers to complement the youth survey.
Refer to the 2025–26 Youth in STEM survey report for more detailed information and project methodology.
Read the previous Youth in STEM survey report for 2023–24.
Read about our methodology.
Data insights
The Youth in STEM research program includes responses from trans and gender diverse young people. While this cohort is too small for reporting across all outputs, this information includes several notable items.
The research found that understanding, interest and perceived importance of STEM among gender diverse young people are in line with all other survey participants, if not higher. However, levels of confidence, current participation and intention to study STEM are lower than levels seen among all other survey participants.
This indicates gender diverse young people may need more support in the areas of STEM. Gender diverse young people are also more likely to step away from STEM to pursue creative interests and careers. Because of this, more could be done to educate young people, specifically gender diverse young people, about how some STEM careers can involve creativity.
Interest in STEM
A slightly lower proportion of gender diverse young people expressed interest in STEM subjects overall (82%) compared to all other survey participants (86%).
There were no statistically significant differences in interest across specific STEM subjects.
Interest in science was very similar between gender diverse young people and all other survey participants. For other STEM subjects, interest was higher among all other survey participants.
Confidence in studying STEM
Gender diverse young people showed slightly lower confidence than all other respondents across all STEM subjects. The largest difference was for engineering skills, with 27% of gender diverse people saying they are confident in studying engineering compared to 41% of all other respondents.
There were no statistically significant differences in confidence across STEM subjects.
The proportion of gender diverse people who were confident in their ability to achieve good results was highest for technology, followed by science. For all other survey participants, confidence was highest for science, followed by technology.
Perceived importance of STEM skills
There are high levels of agreement that STEM knowledge and skills overall are important for getting a good job in future. Ninety-one per cent of gender diverse young people agreed with this, compared to 93% of all other respondents.
A significantly lower proportion of gender diverse young people agreed skills in the following STEM subjects were important:
- science skills 45%, compared to 72% from all other survey participants
- engineering skills 39%, compared to 63% from all other survey participants
- mathematics skills 61%, compared to 79% from all other survey participants.
Intention to study and work in STEM
While there were no significant differences between cohorts, there were some mixed results in the future aspirations in STEM.
A slightly lower proportion of gender diverse young people intend to study a STEM subject in the future (36%), compared to all other survey participants (44%).
When asked why they do not intend to study STEM in the future, 64% of gender diverse young people said they prefer creative subjects, compared to only 20% of all other survey participants.
A slightly lower proportion of gender diverse young people would choose to have a STEM job in future (30%) compared to all other survey participants (32%). In the 2023–24 survey this was the other way around, with 35% of gender diverse young people choosing a STEM job in future compared to 33% of all other survey participants.
A slightly higher proportion of gender diverse young people (12%) would choose a career as a scientist than other survey participants (8%). Engineer is slightly more popular among all other survey participants, while a career as a data analyst is the same between gender diverse young people and other survey participants.
Looking at non-STEM career intentions, gender diverse young people were significantly more likely than all other survey participants to want to be an artist (21% compared to 6%) or social worker (21% compared to 5%).