Women Hold 52.5% of EU Science and Technology Jobs, Eurostat Finds

Official 2025 figures show more than 42 million women in EU science and technology occupations, even as women remain underrepresented among scientists and engineers.

Today’s Progress

Eurostat reported that in 2025 more than 81.6 million people aged 15 to 74 in the European Union worked in science and technology occupations. Women accounted for 52.5% of that workforce—about 42.8 million people—according to a 29 May 2026 news release from the EU’s statistical office.

The total science and technology workforce rose 1.8% from 2024, an increase of roughly 1.5 million people, and was 25.3% larger than a decade earlier. The number of women in these occupations grew faster still: Eurostat recorded a 2.3% rise versus 2024 and a 27.9% increase compared with 2015, equal to more than 9.3 million additional women over ten years.

Eurostat defines science and technology occupations as jobs whose main tasks require a high level of professional or technical knowledge in the physical and life sciences or in the social sciences and humanities. Women in the broad category worked mainly in service activities.

Regional patterns varied. At NUTS 1 level, the highest shares of women in science and technology in 2025 were in Latvia (62.4%), the Hungarian region of Great Plain and North (61.1%), and Estonia (60.5%). The lowest shares were in Corsica (42.7%), Malta (46.0%), and Italy’s Centre region (47.2%).

A narrower subgroup—scientists and engineers—made up almost a quarter (24.8%) of the wider science and technology workforce. Germany employed the largest number, with 4.2 million scientists and engineers. In that subgroup, women remained a minority: 40.8% in 2025. Their share rose only 0.5 percentage points over ten years, though the absolute number of women scientists and engineers climbed 54.4%, from 5.3 million in 2015 to 8.2 million in 2025.

Why This Matters

A majority female share in the broad science and technology workforce means tens of millions of women hold knowledge-intensive jobs that shape services, research support, and technical work across the EU. That is a concrete equity outcome in employment access, not a pledge.

The same release, however, separates current from incomplete progress. Women still hold well under half of scientist and engineer posts, and the share has barely moved in a decade. Absolute growth in that subgroup is real; proportional parity is not. Readers should not treat the 52.5% headline as evidence that STEM research and engineering roles have equalized.

Evidence and Context

The figures come from Eurostat’s human resources in science and technology statistics (dataset hrst_st_rsex) and cover employment in 2025 for people aged 15–74. Strengths include official production, EU-wide coverage, and a clear occupational definition.

Limits matter. The broad category mixes physical sciences with social sciences and humanities and is weighted toward services, so majority female representation does not imply parity in laboratories, engineering plants, or ICT. Earlier Eurostat releases showed women near 52% of the broad category in 2022–2023; the 2025 figure continues a gradual climb rather than a sudden leap. Separate Commission material on research and innovation, including She Figures reporting noted in EU human-rights documentation, has long highlighted persistent underrepresentation of women in core R&I careers—consistent with the 40.8% scientist-and-engineer share here.

Trade-offs are structural: counting frameworks that include social sciences raise women’s measured share; focusing only on scientists and engineers lowers it. Both measures are valid for different policy questions.

What Made This Possible

Eurostat attributes the trend to long-run growth in science and technology employment and faster absolute growth among women over the past decade. EU gender-equality policy in research and innovation—monitoring tools, structural-change requirements in funding programmes, and national labour-market shifts toward knowledge services—forms the wider context, though the statistical release itself does not isolate a single causal programme.

Progress Toward Global Goals

The employment data support monitoring of SDG 5 (Gender Equality), especially targets on women’s full participation in economic life and equal opportunities. They also relate to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) where knowledge occupations expand with measured female participation. Alignment is limited to what the statistics show: broad occupational access improved; core scientist and engineer parity did not. No UDHR article is claimed beyond the general equality principle reflected in non-discrimination norms; the release is statistical, not a rights ruling.

Nothing in the data indicates the development undermines another SDG.

Building on This Success

The following possibilities were generated with the assistance of AI to explore how this progress might be improved, expanded, or adapted. They are ideas for further investigation, not established findings or recommendations from the people featured in the original reporting.

Closing the remaining gap among scientists and engineers may depend less on overall headcount growth and more on retention, promotion, and field-specific pathways where women’s shares stay lowest. Member states with high broad participation (for example Latvia and Estonia) could be studied for practices that also lift the scientist-and-engineer share, tested against longitudinal Eurostat series rather than one-year snapshots. Employers and research funders might trial transparent promotion criteria and return-to-work support, with success judged by multi-year changes in women’s share of scientists and engineers—not only total science and technology jobs.

What does Eurostat’s 2025 count reveal about women reaching a majority in EU science and technology jobs while remaining a minority of scientists and engineers?

The release shows two simultaneous truths. First, women now form a clear majority of the EU’s broadly defined science and technology workforce, with more than nine million additional women since 2015 and continued growth into 2025. Second, among scientists and engineers—the subgroup most often associated with research and technical design—women are still about two in five, and their share has edged up only half a percentage point in ten years even as their absolute numbers rose by more than half.

That split is the story’s analytical core. Majority status in the wide category is demonstrated and meaningful for equity in knowledge work. Parity in the narrower scientific and engineering core remains unfinished, and the data give a measurable baseline against which future policy can be judged.

Three Promising Next Steps

1. Field-level retention audits — National statistical offices and research ministries could publish annual sex-disaggregated flows into and out of scientist and engineer roles by field, testing whether interventions reduce exit rates for women within three years.
2. Service-to-core bridges — Universities and employers might create funded conversion and mentorship paths from female-majority technical service roles into engineering and research posts, measured by transition counts and five-year retention.
3. Regional peer learning — Regions above 60% female share in the broad category could document hiring and workplace practices and compare scientist-and-engineer shares with peer regions, using Eurostat NUTS series as the common yardstick.

What Readers Can Watch

• Eurostat’s next annual update of hrst_st_rsex for whether the scientist-and-engineer female share moves beyond the 0.5-point decade trend.
• Country and NUTS 1 breakdowns that show whether low-share regions (for example parts of Italy, Malta, Corsica) narrow the gap.
• Commission She Figures and related R&I gender reports for whether core research leadership indicators move with the broader employment majority.
• Absolute versus percentage trends: large headcount gains can coexist with stalled shares.