“Employers need to be open to hiring both women and men who are returning to work after career breaks, as well as existing workers of any age who want a second or even a third career,” Debbie Forster, CEO of the Tech Talent Charter.
In March 2020 the Institute of Coding (IoC), a government-supported initiative designed to respond to the UK’s digital skills gap, and Deloitte, published research showing that 54 per cent of women working in non-digital jobs said the main reason they were not pursuing a digital career was because they did not know how to retrain or did not believe that they had studied the subjects necessary to work in digital. Read the report here.
<aside> 💡 In June 2020 The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced 2,500 new places on artificial intelligence and data science conversion courses are now open to applicants with 1,000 scholarships offered to students from underrepresented backgrounds. Digital Secretary, Oliver Dowden said: 'It is vital we increase diversity across our tech sector and give everyone with the aptitude and talent the opportunity to build a successful career. This will help make sure artificial intelligence developed in the UK reflects the needs and make-up of society as a whole which will also help mitigate the risk of biased technologies being developed. Through these new AI and data science conversion courses we are working with industry and academia to develop and maintain the best AI workforce in the world'. To find out more visit: Office For Students website.
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Titled ‘Diversifying Digital’, the research concluded that there are three important ways to encourage women of all ages to pursue digital education and careers:
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