Code First Girls, the UK's largest provider of free coding education for women, has announced a major milestone: teaching more than 200,000 women to code.
Last year alone, the organization provided more than 80,000 educational opportunities, a stark contrast to the 18,000 women enrolled in computer science degrees across the UK.
The UK tech sector faces a looming skills gap, with an estimated 3 million additional professionals needed by 2025. Code First Girls addresses this challenge by tapping into a largely untapped talent pool, with 49% of its community comprising From professional converters.
Partnership and placement
Code First Girls partners with more than 130 partners, including notable companies such as Sainsbury's, GCHQ, Nike and Activision Blizzard, to put women into different technology roles. These partnerships help build global talent pipelines, offering entry-level and intermediate programs and upskilling programmes. The organization supports partners in international markets, including Poland, Germany, the USA, Singapore and India.
Women trained by Code First Girls are placed in roles such as AI engineers, cybersecurity specialists, DevOps professionals, software or data engineers, and data scientists. Hiring women from non-technical backgrounds brings benefits such as creative problem solving, improved performance, and innovation across sectors.
Progress in acting
The representation of women in the technology industry has seen a gradual increase: from 15% in 2020 to 19% in 2023. However, according to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, it may take another 283 years for the proportion of women in the technology industry. The UK tech sector will match a 48% female ratio in the wider workforce if current trends continue.
Leaders' statements
Anna Brailsford, CEO of Code First Girls, highlighted the organisation's impact: “With women only making up a fifth of the tech industry, it's clear that the traditional model of coding education is failing to support women and people from more diverse backgrounds in tech. Code First Girls helps We aim to rectify this by partnering with companies, government and universities to provide job opportunities through free education.
Lauren Barnes, consulting partner at Deloitte, emphasized the importance of diversity: “An inclusive culture attracts the best talent, enables innovation, and provides high-quality services to our clients. Finding, inspiring and developing the best female talent is extremely important. Collaborating with organizations like Code First Girls aims to open opportunities for women to support our clients and succeed in their careers at Deloitte.
Chris Williamson, head of mobile and payments at TUI, pointed out the challenge and potential of gender diversity: “Gender diversity in technology remains a real challenge. Diverse teams perform better, deliver greater innovation, and bring different perspectives to challenges. I'm very excited about what we can achieve through our partnership with Code First Girls to attract more females to travel tech.
George Barry, Director of Talent Acquisition at CTOO at Credit Suisse, praised the partnership: “Code First Girls provides women from non-technical backgrounds with the skills, confidence and inspiration to become software or data engineers and technology leaders of the future. Partnering with Code First Girls allows us to build a talent pipeline Our technology department brings fresh perspectives and innovative thinking to our technology department.