Getting More Women in Tech Starts at the Beginning
Parul Singh
Founder @ Parallel Minds - building a brighter future for Neurodivergent people in tech ??? Autistic & ADHD ?? Experienced Keynote Speaker ???
49% of all workers in the UK are women. 19% of people working in tech are women. See the difference here?
There are many factors in play here, but I wanted to talk about one that stands out as a fairly 'easy fix' to me. It starts at the beginning - at school/college.
Going to get a bit political here, so if you don't agree you're more than welcome to comment with opinions but let's keep it civil! There's not enough being done in schools to help students explore and pursue the variety of career options available to them. It's not much better in private schools either. This leads to girls taking the typical career routes and making careers in industries like tech inaccessible.
Story time!
I went to a state school for high school, then to a private school for sixth form (both all girls schools). They were equally terrible for career guidance but for different reasons (to be fair the private school was better because I eventually got my head down and went on to get a masters in Chemistry from the University of Manchester).
The state school I went to changed from private to an academy the year I joined. They had after school clubs every day, kids who got the school bus had to go to them on a Tues-Thurs because the busses left an hour later. The activities on choice were : Cross stitching, netball. home economics etc. See what I'm getting at here? There was no diverse choice to allow the girls to explore different ideas, especially related to tech.
The private school I went to gave some pretty weak sessions on career guidance. I got told to start writing a personal statement at the end of lower sixth with having absolutely no clue what I wanted to do? I ended up starting to write one for medicine as my parents are doctors and I thought, yeah I could probably do that and its good money. After doing some work experience and being unable to give any proper reasons why I wanted to do medicine, I figured my heart wasn't really in it (I also really hate blood and I'm pretty squeamish lol). The school were only prepared to spend time and effort on those students going to do medicine or dentistry or going to oxbridge because after all thats what looks better on them!
What would I go back and tell my younger self?
I'd go back and tell myself that a career in tech is cool! I could work for some great companies making a difference in the world and I wouldn't be sat at a computer just coding away all day. I'd tell myself that once I learnt to code I could build some great things in my spare time to make my life easier. I'd tell myself that there's more diversity in the workplace than I thought, still a way to go though but I can be part of that movement.
It starts at the beginning
Kids are naturally curious, but whilst at school we get boxed into the 'usual' career paths. Girls feel unsure of going for anything outside of the norm, like being a Nurse, Doctor, Beauty, Hairdressing etc. We need to help continue inspiring the younger generations and as a result we'll start to see a rise in diversity in tech. There are some companies out there doing some great work on this I wanted to shoutout :
- Tech returners. Their programme provides a fully-accessible up-skilling route into tech. 88% of their returners are women!
- Manchester Digital & Digital Her. They provide a lot of support to bridge the equality gap in tech with real mentors and role models, work experience
- Northcoders. Its a 12 week intensive bootcamp where the students learn full stack JavaScript using TDD and a few other skills. I love their style of teaching and how accessible it is.
I am always keen to do my part, I'm already working with Digital Her to mentor college/school girls and I will be speaking at panel events in the coming months. If there is anything you think I can help to get involved in, please get in touch I'd love to give a hand!
I Amplify Voices in Tech - "Where every voice matters"
4 年Great piece Parul Singh, thank you for the mentioned, I am on a panel at the WIT London Summit on Thursday and this is one of the talking points :)
Senior Software Engineer | Pythonista | Data Geek
4 年Absolutely agree with this. I also went to an all girls school (in Ireland) and the career guidance was woeful and there was little encouragement to take up the options outside of the traditional "girly" subjects. They also allowed students to drop science completely at age 13-ish (after 1st year, year 8 equivalent) despite the fact that having a science subject to Leaving Certificate is required for a huge range of careers. I ended up studying CS, but that was after dropping out of a maths degree so even taking the traditional tech route was circuitous for me!
MD at Counter, Co-Founder and Chief Partnerships Officer at Northcoders Group PLC, Board Member at Innovate Her, Wild Digital, GMCA Cyber, Keynote Speaker, "NW Top 50 Tech Transformer", Record Label Owner
4 年Hi Parul. Everything you are doing is so valuable. I don't think the message that you are trying to get out there can ever be loud enough. Not until we have 50/50 gender balance in tech that is so naturally achieved that schemes like this no longer need to exist!
Recruitment Partner at Transport for Greater Manchester
4 年You make lots of great points here Parul. I don't think there is enough careers advice in school but I think Industries need to step in to bridge the gaps a bit. Thinking about the future work force we've seen it in the trade industry a lack of apprenticeships led to massive skills shortages, tech is only going to grow so looking are the current jobs out there how many will be obsolete due to AI development?? If we put in the ground work now it would have massive I pacts of skills gaps and job satisfaction.
CTO and Co-Founder @ Tech Returners, Tech Director @ Counter, Co-organiser DevOps Manchester
4 年Thank you for the mention ??