Diversity and new blood are vital to tech – that’s why Hire-Train-Deploy is the future

I recently gave a talk on behalf of STEM ambassadors at Peter Symonds, a sixth-form college in Winchester, and it was a real wake-up call for me.

I spoke to 300 students aged 16-18, and they said there are still major barriers for young people dreaming of a career in technology.

In my tech bubble, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing we’ve been moving the dial a lot more dramatically in promoting STEM and making it more accessible. Despite all the progress we’ve made in the last decades to make tech more diverse, there is still a perception that engineering is male-dominated, requires a degree, and favours certain personality types.

The government and the private sector have invested billions in improving the pathways to STEM jobs for young people from all backgrounds. Previously the focus has been on digital literacy, and now we’re even teaching basic coding for 5-year-olds.?

So why are young people still telling me it’s not achievable?

The scarcity of skills is a growing problem, as technology is evolving faster than we can keep up. As we move into an era of cloud, automation, AI, quantum and other advances, the need for diverse new blood with diverse viewpoints is huge. You can’t get that by continuously dipping back into the same talent pool. The only way to address it is to get more young people in.?

A year or two ago, when conditions were more favourable in our industry, many companies were able to invest in more inclusive cultures, promoting diversity and neurodiversity.

Onboarding of young people becomes much harder when the market turns when managers are under pressure from leaders and shareholders to prioritise other concerns. Economic pressures, lack of management bandwidth and pressure to increase productivity all push this issue further down the agenda.

That’s a mistake. Attracting and developing talent for the future isn’t just for when the sun is shining. But I recognise it’s not easy. For technology teams and engineering managers, it takes time to find, interview, onboard and train young people with potential but not established engineering skills. When the heat is on, it’s easier to make a case for experienced people who don’t need support to achieve high productivity immediately.

What’s the solution?

Learning is a challenge for young people in any industry, but perhaps more so in technology. Social learning - learning from more experienced peers about the very specific ways and agile methodologies teams use – is incredibly important. It can be hard even for experienced new hires.

A lot of tech roles are remote and I think it’s important for young people to be in the room, to get the maximum benefit from peer learning. Luckily, tech is no longer as London-centric as it used to be, and I have worked with a number of companies who are looking to set up satellite hubs precisely so they can access more young people in the UK.

Young people no longer need to learn to code either, if they want a chance of getting into a tech firm. As well as engineers, there are product roles, analysts, technical architects, UI, data and AI specialists. Part of getting young people into tech is raising awareness of the diversity of opportunity. Also, our industry has expanded way beyond coding, particularly now that we are seeing the utility of things like generative AI and low code.

But there is still a gap, a need for a different model for educating and training young people for STEM careers.

The UK government brought in an Apprenticeship Levy in 2015 to help fund apprenticeships, but the courses are very off-the-shelf, they’re not as up-to-date and relevant as they could be, and there is no guaranteed employment after the apprenticeships end. Tech firms still have to train and onboard new hires, and while that may be feasible for companies with big L&D departments, most would struggle.

Fortunately, there are some great businesses out there doing good work in the Hire-Train-Deploy (HTD) space.

These companies have spotted the opportunity in client feedback (“we don't have time to train, we don’t have management bandwidth, we don't want to risk investing in people who will then leave”) and have created an effective method where everyone wins.

They hire young people, train them and deploy them to clients for a fixed period of time. At the end of that period, the young people become full-time members of the client’s team.

HTD companies like Sparta Global and Kubrick are very active in this space and very successful at encouraging young people to apply. The HTD company understands a client’s needs and can build some of that into the learning. The young person gets a head start with a 3-month intensive course sponsored by the company, but the biggest learning still happens once a young person joins a client on-site. They have a support network around them too, with 70% of mentoring coming from a client’s team members and 30% - what I see as the critical 30% - from the HTD provider’s team. That mentoring can continue for as much as two years.

FDM has been doing HTD for 20 years and has cornered the market. In the last five years, I’ve seen entries into this space rise dramatically, and there are now a lot of very good businesses that are seizing this opportunity.

There are also some bad businesses in the space, showing us how not to do it, and giving the model a bad reputation among some tech leaders. Making students pay for their courses is one red flag. Other companies may initially fund the learning but with restrictive conditions where if students don’t secure a role or fulfil obligations at the end of the course, they have to pay back some or all of the cost.

These companies may not even provide the training, so they are little more than glorified loan companies. All of these practices are totally counter to the inclusive ethos of Hire-Train-Deploy and actually inhibit the very thing they are supposed to be achieving.

If I were a tech firm looking at HTD providers, I would look closely at the commitment required of students, the quality of training and the opportunities available once the course has finished.

Build Circle’s Future Scale is another programme that trains young people for STEM careers, but unlike other HTD providers who are effectively technology academies, Build Circle is a technology consulting business, so students learn directly from an experienced consultancy and get the Build Circle kite mark.

If you’re interested in the HTD model, just be aware that it’s better suited to companies that can offer stability and a level of commitment for young people. That’s why HTD is not right for startups, it’s something I would recommend scaleups to explore, the kind of businesses with engineering teams of 25 to 200 people who are established and targeting growth, but are not so large that the impact of these young people goes unnoticed.

That’s a key point because the benefits of bringing in fresh blood go both ways. A diverse pipeline of young people adds to your culture and to your capacity. Young people are being embedded and supported, and they are encouraged to stay for longer rather than take IP away with them.

Yes, the average tenure in tech these days is more like four years than 10 years, but this model also gives young people a proper first-job experience, and a lot can still be achieved in four years, with benefits accruing to everyone from day one.

If you’ve had experience with Hire-Train-Deploy or have an opinion to share on getting young people into tech, I’d love to hear it! Tell us in the comments section. I’d also appreciate it if you could like this newsletter edition, so we can spread the word about this hugely important issue and get more companies on board.

Thanks for reading!