Women in technology paid less, but that might not last for long

Women in tech roles are getting paid less than men and asking for lower salaries — but that trend might be changing.

A study released last week shows that companies offer female job candidates 3 percent less on average than they offer male candidates.

The data comes from San Francisco-based Hired, an online service that matches job-seekers with companies looking to hire. The firm analyzed data from 15,000 candidates and 3,000 companies.

The study looked at technical roles, as well as sales and marketing at tech companies, and found that men received higher salary offers than women for the same positions in 69 percent of the cases.

Women often set their salary expectations lower than men did. Hired shows that female candidates using the service set their expected compensation, on average, $14,000 less per year than male candidates.

Big organizations, and particularly tech companies, have come under recent pressure from investor groups to disclose gender wage gaps. Amazon and Microsoft released data over the past couple of weeks showing that pay gaps between their male and female workers were essentially nonexistent.

Gender disparities in tech have been a heated topic for years, with the discussion bubbling up recently as more tech companies hire rapidly and workforce numbers highlight the gap between men and women, especially in technical roles.

Hired shows that gender pay gaps are smaller at startups than in larger organizations. The pay gap can sometimes grow to as much as 30 percent.

But all that could be coming to an end.

Women early in their careers are setting their salary expectations higher than men at the same level.

And they’re getting paid more. Women in junior roles are getting, on average, 7 percent more than men in junior roles on Hired’s service.