Every year the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reports on gender equality indicators for private sector employers with 100 or more employees across 19 industries. This includes STEM-qualified industries.
Gender representation by industry
Explore the interactive dashboard
You can use the interactive data below to see the proportion of women in STEM industries, health industries and all industries, and compare the distribution of women and men in senior management positions.
The WGEA introduced 2 new manager categories in 2021, so data from 2021 onwards is presented separately to 2016–2020 data. The 2 new manager categories were:
- head of business
- key management personnel.
Learn more about the data
The Power BI dashboards in the monitor present data in different formats, including charts, graphs and tables. You can customise these dashboards based on what you're interested in.
- Filter the data: Click the options on the left side of each dashboard and make your selections.
- Find more information about a specific data point: Hover your cursor over the dashboard to reveal more information, such as counts or percentages, if available.
- Reset the page to its original selections: Click the button labelled ‘Refresh to default view’ in the bottom left corner of the page.
- Move between different pages in a dashboard: Click the buttons along the top of the dashboard, if available.
Industries shown on this page align to Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification codes. In the STEM Equity Monitor, we define industries as STEM industries when more than 50% of people in the industry reported a STEM qualification in the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
This data is from private sector employers with 100 or more employees that reported to the WGEA. The 2020–21 WGEA dataset was smaller because of the impacts of COVID-19, changes to the WGEA reporting platform, and changes to the way corporate groups reported using the new platform. Data is not available for some industries due to small sample sizes.
Discrepancies between WGEA Data Explorer and all industries data shown are due to output timing. All industries data on this page contains additional employers because it was compiled more recently than WGEA Data Explorer.
This page shows workforce data for industry rather than occupation, by gender across years. For users who would prefer:
- numbers of women and men in detailed occupations across years, see Detailed STEM-qualified occupations by gender
- occupation data at a less detailed level but including diversity groups other than gender across years, see STEM-qualified occupations, by diversity group
- detailed occupation data for 2021 only, with intersecting diversity groups and state/territory splits, see Diversity in STEM insights from the 2021 Census.
See WGEA’s dataset.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
Data insights
In 2025, women made up 31% of workers in STEM industries. This was an increase from 29% in 2024. The proportion of senior managers in STEM industries who were women was 27%. This was unchanged from 2024.
Women made up 78% of workers in health industries and 51% of workers in all industries, which includes STEM, health and non-STEM industries. These results were the same as 2024.
Scientific research services was the STEM industry with the largest representation of women in 2025, making up 65% of workers. Women made up 50% of heads of business in the scientific research services industry, which was an increase from 44% in 2024. Women in this industry make up 50% of senior managers, and 64% of other managers in 2025.
The highest proportion of women in senior STEM management positions was in key management personnel (29%), other managers (28%), senior managers (27%), and other executives and general manager (27%) roles. There has been an increase in women in key management personnel positions in all STEM industries, from 27% in 2024 to 29% in 2025, and in other manager positions, from 26% in 2024 to 28% in 2025.
The lowest proportion of women in senior STEM management positions were in CEO roles. Women made up 13% of CEOs across all STEM industries. This proportion was low compared to all health industries and all industries. However, the proportion of women in CEO roles in STEM industries increased from 2024 to 2025, while other industry types decreased.
- In all STEM industries, women made up 13% of CEOs in 2025, an increase from 12% in 2024.
- In all industries, women made up 22% of CEOs in 2025, a decrease from 25% in 2024.
- In all health industries, women made up 39% of CEOs in 2025, a decrease from 48% in 2024. Please note, the figures CEOs in health industries can be more changeable than other industries. This is because there is a relatively small number of employers in these industries.
Gender equity policies and strategies by industry
Explore the interactive dashboard
You can use this interactive data to see the proportion of employers in STEM, non-STEM and health industries with gender equality strategies and policies.
Learn more about the data
The Power BI dashboards in the monitor present data in different formats, including charts, graphs and tables. You can customise these dashboards based on what you're interested in.
- Filter the data: Click the options on the left side of each dashboard and make your selections.
- Find more information about a specific data point: Hover your cursor over the dashboard to reveal more information, such as counts or percentages, if available.
- Reset the page to its original selections: Click the button labelled ‘Refresh to default view’ in the bottom left corner of the page, if available.
- Move between different pages in a dashboard: Click the buttons along the top of the dashboard.
Industries shown on this page align to Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification codes. In the STEM Equity Monitor, we define industries as STEM industries when more than 50% of people in the industry reported a STEM qualification in the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
This data is from private sector employers with 100 or more employees that reported to the WGEA. The 2020–21 WGEA dataset was smaller because of the impacts of COVID-19, changes to the WGEA reporting platform, and changes to the way corporate groups reported using the new platform. Data is not available for some industries due to small sample sizes.
Discrepancies between WGEA Data Explorer and all industries data shown are due to output timing. All industries data on this page contains additional employers because it was compiled more recently than WGEA Data Explorer.
This page shows workforce data for industry rather than occupation, by gender across years. For users who would prefer:
- numbers of women and men in detailed occupations across years, see Detailed STEM-qualified occupations by gender
- occupation data at a less detailed level but including diversity groups other than gender across years, see STEM-qualified occupations, by diversity group
- detailed occupation data for 2021 only, with intersecting diversity groups and state/territory splits, see Diversity in STEM insights from the 2021 Census.
See WGEA’s dataset.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
Data insights
In 2025, 93% of employers in all STEM industries had an overall gender equality policy or strategy. This was lower than 94% in 2024 but higher than 82% in 2020.
Employers in all STEM industries that had a recruitment gender equality policy or strategy in 2025 was 97%, compared to 88% in 2020. Despite the proportion of employers in all STEM industries with retention gender equality policies or strategies increasing from 72% in 2020 to a peak of 78% in 2023, there was a decrease to 72% in 2025.
The largest increase over the last 5 years was in formal policies or strategies to support employees experiencing family and domestic violence. In 2025, 99% of employers in all STEM industries had these policies compared to 68% in 2020. These policies also saw the largest increase from 2024 (89%) to 2025 (99%).