The First Step Up

When we talk about women being under-represented in technology leadership, we tend to picture the top. The board, the C-suite, the glass ceiling.

New McKinsey research on women in technology in Europe points much earlier.

The report draws on education data, more than four million LinkedIn profiles and interviews with senior women working in technology across Europe. Across all five job families it studied, the sharpest fall in women's representation happens between entry level and the first management role.

Depending on the field, that fall is between seven and 18 percentage points. It is the biggest single drop at any stage.

That caught my attention because this is the transition I know well. I made it myself, moving from technical specialist into leadership, and it is now the transition I most often coach women through.

Why this step feels different

On paper, the move into management looks like straightforward progression. In practice, it changes how you know whether you are doing a good job.

Until that point, your value has often been quite concrete. You are the person who can do the work and do it well. You solve the difficult problem, deliver the project or provide the answer other people need.

When you move into leadership, that technical expertise still matters, but it is no longer the whole job. Your success depends increasingly on what other people are able to do. You have to step back from some of the detail, make decisions with less information and accept that the results of your work may take longer to appear.

Some of the immediate proof of competence goes with that. A technical problem can be solved. A piece of work can be completed. Leadership is less certain and more open to other people's interpretation.

That can make it tempting to hold on to the technical work. It is familiar, useful and gives a much quicker answer to the question, "Am I doing a good job?" But trying to stay the expert while also becoming the leader can leave someone doing two jobs, and leaves less room for the team to develop.

None of this is unique to women. But the report suggests why the transition may carry extra weight for women in technology. It cites Web Summit's 2025 Women in Tech Survey, in which 82 percent of women said they had to prove themselves more than men. If you have spent years establishing your technical credibility, moving into a role where the measures are less clear is not a neutral change. It can feel like stepping away from the strongest evidence you have of what you can do.

The part sponsorship plays

The report also makes an important distinction between confidence and opportunity. The authors say women "do not lack ambition or confidence". What they frequently lack is sponsorship.

A mentor can listen, offer advice and help you think. A sponsor does something different. They use their own influence to put your name forward for an important project, a more visible role or the first management job.

That matters because nobody can offer complete proof that they will be a good manager before they have been given the chance to become one. Someone has to decide that what you have already done is enough evidence of what you could do next.

Technical ability is part of that decision, but it rarely makes it on its own.

Where coaching fits

Coaching cannot create a sponsor or change the culture around someone. What it can do is help them understand more clearly what is making the transition difficult.

What first sounds like a confidence problem often becomes more specific. Is it hard to let go of the detail? To delegate work you know you could do yourself? To influence former peers, or establish credibility with more senior stakeholders? Or is the role unclear, the feedback vague, the chance to lead not really there?

Often, more than one of those is true.

Coaching can help someone separate what is theirs to work on from what belongs to the environment, so that a lack of opportunity or support is not quietly rewritten as a personal failing.

It can also help them think more deliberately about the relationships they need, the experience that would prepare them for the next step, and making sure the right people know what they want from their career. That does not guarantee sponsorship, but it makes the way ahead less dependent on waiting to be noticed.

Technical cultures often encourage the belief that good work should speak for itself. When decisions are being made about progression, it rarely does.

The first move into management is not the whole explanation for why women remain under-represented at the top of technology. But if it is where the largest drop happens, it deserves far more attention than it usually gets.

Source: McKinsey & Company, "Women in tech and AI in Europe: Can the region close its gender gap?", March 2026.