Fresh research from the cybersecurity tech firm Acronis reveals a troubling perception gap that should concern every HR professional in the tech sector and beyond.

According to Acronis’ “2025 Women in Tech Report,” which features results of a survey of more than 650 IT professionals in eight countries, men and women are working in the same industry but experiencing vastly different realities.

The inequity is substantial:

Equal opportunity. While 75% of men believe career development opportunities are equal, only 60% of women share that view. That is a 15-point chasm in how the workforce perceives fairness.

Work-life balance. 63% of women say work-life balance challenges significantly impact their career progression, compared to just 49% of men. Women are also more likely to believe they must work longer hours to advance: 67% versus 56% of men.

Workplace bias. 41% of women cite bias and stereotypes as major barriers to entering cybersecurity careers, compared to 33% of men. Similar gaps appear regarding leadership opportunities, where 41% of women versus 36% of men identify bias as the biggest obstacle.

Perhaps most telling, 52% of women express significant concern about missing career opportunities due to family responsibilities, compared to 42% of men. This modern workplace FOMO isn’t just about missing happy hours; it’s about missing the moments that matter for career advancement.

“Closing the gender gap requires more than good intentions,” says Alona Geckler, senior VP of business operations and chief of staff at Acronis. “Organizations must recognize these disparities and design programs that expand leadership opportunities, confront bias head-on and create environments where work-life balance doesn’t present any barriers that may potentially derail women’s careers.”

When men and women perceive workplace equity so differently, it suggests that that diversity and inclusion initiatives may not be reaching the people who need them most. If male employees believe opportunities are equal while female colleagues see systematic barriers, the organization has a blind spot, and it’s costing talent.

The implications are clear. Women may be leaving opportunities on the table, not pursuing leadership roles or leaving the organization entirely because they perceive barriers that male colleagues don’t recognize exist, the study suggests. Meanwhile, male leaders making decisions about programs and policies may be operating with an incomplete picture of the challenges their female colleagues face.

“I think the main problem here is that the decisions of how companies establish their cultures, the benefits they offer, the workplace policies, the salaries and so on are usually taken by men who sit around tables deciding what equal opportunities look like,” says Jan Hendrik von Ahlen, managing director and cofounder of the jobs site JobLeads. “Equality and inclusion cannot be designed from the outside.”

Amy Spurling, founder and CEO of the HCM platform Compt, brings more than 20 years of tech leadership experience and has witnessed male-female disparity up close. Spurling — whose current company reflects exceptional diversity, with a 62% female workforce, 38% POC/Biracial representation and 19% female leadership — emphasizes that women face systemic barriers, being penalized for caregiving, judged differently on leadership style, and promoted based on proof rather than potential. “You can’t close gender gaps with posters and ‘empowerment’ slogans,” she says. “You close them with systems.” Women aren’t asking for special treatment, she points out, just fair rules, and until companies redesign how they promote, evaluate and support people, the gaps will persist.

Pragya Malhotra Gupta, COO at isolved, an HCM platform, also shared her perspective as a woman leader in tech, stressing that organizations must create merit-based career pathways using objective metrics rather than subjective factors like after-hours visibility, which disadvantages working mothers. Gupta recommends making mentorship accessible through asynchronous formats and investing in targeted leadership development for women. As she puts it: “We can’t expect gender disparity to disappear unless we identify the roadblocks impacting equity and address them through both cultural and systemic practices.”

Acronis’s research points to several actionable strategies:

Invest in targeted leadership development. 70% of women prioritize leadership development programs tailored specifically for women, compared to 56% of men. That isn’t about lowering standards but about acknowledging that women may face unique challenges in accessing leadership opportunities.

Make bias visible. The fact that women are significantly more likely to identify bias as a barrier suggests many organizations are falling short in bias awareness and mitigation. Regular bias training, transparent promotion processes and accountability measures can help close this gap.

Rethink work-life integration. When two-thirds of female tech employees believe they need to work longer hours just to keep pace, something obviously is broken. HR may want to consider whether their promotion criteria inadvertently favor “always-on” availability over results, or whether family responsibilities are being treated as career liabilities rather than normal life events.

Bolster female leadership. The report reveals that 82% of women believe more female leaders would improve workplace culture. Role models matter, and seeing women in leadership positions sends a powerful signal about what’s possible.

Listen more, assume less. As Melyssa Banda from Seagate Technology noted in response to the findings, companies need to “listen more closely to women’s experiences.” Anonymous surveys, focus groups and exit interviews can reveal gaps that don’t surface in typical performance conversations.

With women representing less than one-third (29%) of the global tech workforce—a figure unchanged for years—companies that successfully attract, retain and promote female talent have a competitive advantage. But you can’t retain what you can’t see, the study stresses. If your organization is treating the gender gap as solely a pipeline problem, you’re missing the larger issue: Women already in the workforce are experiencing a different reality than their male counterparts.

The opportunity gap isn’t just about what women lack; it’s about what organizations fail to recognize. By acknowledging such differences in perception and designing targeted interventions — and crucially, by bringing women themselves into the decision-making process — HR departments could have a shot at moving beyond good intentions to create measurable change.

As JobLeads’ von Ahlen puts it, “If HR leaders really want to close those gaps, they need to create solutions and policies together with women, not just for women.”