Women find it difficult to find work in the IT industry, but progress quickly up the career ladder once they have made it through the front door, new research reveals.

UK training company the Training Camp questioned over 1,000 women at different levels of the IT industry. They discovered that 67 per cent of all women working in the industry thought it was harder to secure their first employment opportunity than to climb up the ranks.

Interestingly, more than half of the respondents (52 per cent) believed that upon attaining a position, they could climb quicker in the IT industry than in other sectors.

The survey revealed that one of the biggest challenges for women entering the IT world was demonstrating their suitability for positions traditionally considered to be male-orientated.

"Jobs like project managers and software developers require people who are organized, creative and good with personal interaction, but these are aspects of working in the IT industry that tend to be skirted over" said Rob Chapman, chief executive at the Training Camp.

He said that increasing the number of women who apply for IT jobs would help to increase the number working in the sector and make it easier in turn for women to break into the industry in the future.

According to recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent)