Government Communications Security Bureau director, Andrew Hampton, says the agency has a responsibility to lead in the recruitment of women into STEM subjects - not just for its own good.

When New Zealand's spies had their last pay review, it became clear to hierarchy that some were getting short-changed for their service.

So the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) moved to bump up the pay of a small handful of women who, for no other discernible reason, were getting paid less than their male counterparts.

New Zealand's external spy agency is on a mission for gender diversity and equality, and has set a target to reduce its gender pay gap to five per cent. It's already halved over the past five years to eight per cent, and sits below the state sector average of 9.4 per cent.

20TH CENTURY FOX Recent Oscar winning movie Hidden Figures told the largely unknown story of the female mathematicians who played a crucial role in landing the first man on the Moon. Computer sciences, mathematics and engineering were still areas that faced significant female under-representation.

But it was a problem the bureau could only improve so far, unless more women were recruited into cyber security at the Government level.

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With recent global cyber security threats like Wannacry and ongoing terrorist threats, the GCSB needed the best minds early and it needed to be as transparent as it could be about the threats that existed and how it responded to those, Director General Andrew Hampton said.

JACK TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES Pioneers in their field, but there's a long way to go. Former "Wrens" (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service and codebreakers at Bletchley Park) (R-L) Lorna Cockayne, Irene Dixon, Shirley Wheeldon and Margaret Mortimer listen to a talk at The National Museum of Computing on June 3, 2016 in Bletchley, England. During World War II British codebreakers helped decypher the German Army's Lorenz cypher using the Colossus computer and Tunny machine at the Government Code and Cypher School's main codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. The machines at Bletchley Park's Block H, the world's first purpose-built computer centre, helped gather crucial intelligence for the British military during the war.

At its most basic, it was legally and ethically right to ensure people were being paid fairly.

"But there's an equally compelling business case about why it makes sense to have a workforce that better reflects the society that you serve.

"And we want to make sure that we're not excluding or discounting big chunks of the population - whether they be female or people from ethnic minorities. As long as they've got those technical skills," Hampton said.

In contrast to the internally-focused Security Intelligence Service, the GCSB's basic mission was to gather foreign intelligence by electronic means.

Although more than 50 per cent of its staff were female at the senior leadership level, women represented only 36 per cent of staff overall and the technical roles were particularly under-represented.

He was mindful that an organisation full of "white males" was at risk of "group think", but the representation problem began at university.

So the GCSB was also taking on a national responsibility to recruit more women into what's known as university STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"The stats show that at primary school level, there's no difference between males and females achieving in science. When you get to secondary, women do continue to do science but they get pulled more towards biology and health sciences," Hampton said.

At university level, only 26 per cent of computer science students were female, and 13 per cent were doing engineering.

"We want, not just for ourselves but for the good of the country, for women to be thinking about what a career would look like in one of those technical roles early on, so they make subject choices that take them in that direction."

Hampton has announced four female students who are the first winners of a major scholarship for the GCSB to pay for part of their studies.

From a significant pool of applicants Amber Joseph of Victoria University, Kiri Lenagh Glue from Otago, Jessica Robertson of Canterbury and Georgia Gadsby studying at Auckland University, will receive $10,000 each and were under no obligation to work for the GCSB after.

Competing with tech giants like Google and Facebook, in recruiting the country's best - and they were actively poaching in New Zealand - meant it was incumbent on the bureau to ensure it was an employer New Zealand's best and brightest wanted to work for.

"You know, a lot of people doing reviews of their gender pay gap and reviews of diversity and inclusion and a lot of talk about it.

"I guess our approach here is you've got to get beyond admiring the problem. You've actually got to start doing stuff, so that's why we got on with this scholarship."