Tech Still Has a Diversity Problem. So How Do We Fix It?

It’s not exactly breaking news to say that tech has a diversity problem. The facts are there for all of us to see.

Only one in 20 leadership positions in the UK technology sector is filled by a woman. Almost three-quarters of boards and over two-thirds of senior executive teams in the UK’s top tech firms have no black, Asian or minority ethnic members.

While we’ve definitely made strides toward recruiting more diverse talent, this progress has often been superficial, because those candidates find there is little space for progression, making them harder to retain.

We all know the problem exists. But what do we actually do about it?

As a white man, I’m probably not the best person to answer that question, so I asked my colleague Amardeep Sirha, Head of Delivery at AmarTi, as part of my The Insider podcast series.

Amardeep’s so well placed to talk about this, because she’s not from what you’d call a traditional tech background – in fact, her story’s so interesting, I wrote about it on here too.

I think her experiences are something a lot of technology leaders can hopefully understand and gain a bit of value from.

But first, let me explain why I’m writing this article in the first place.

After all, you might be thinking, “There’s already a huge Women in Tech movement, so why are we even talking about this?”

Well, there are a couple of reasons.

Firstly, fixing the diversity problem in tech isn’t about dragging women out of other industries where they might be really successful and into one where they might not feel comfortable.

Secondly, it goes way deeper than recruiters or hiring managers ignoring minority candidates. Our lack of diversity is partly an issue of education.

Before she started in tech, Amardeep taught economics for eight years. It’s fair to say she didn’t have a lot of female students, but she’d always stand up at open evenings and try to persuade girls to sign up. At the time, she didn’t realise she was fighting for women in STEM!

This all starts in the curriculum, and the curriculum starts in years one and two. And it’s not just about STEM subjects.

For instance, when she was in school, Amardeep had a choice of hockey or tennis, while the boys got to choose between football and rugby. Or consider how young women are taught about motherhood. Sure, that’s important. But boys also need to be taught about fatherhood. 

The more you think about it, the more frustrating it becomes. Like, why have we got this idea that engineering or coding are unappealing to girls?

As Amardeep puts it, “When you're little, basically all subjects are boring. [When there’s] a subject that you really like, it's usually based on a teacher or your parents. It's usually based on the teacher making it fantastic.”

So why would we assume coding would be boring to girls? Children today love gaming, and 50% of those who play games on most days are female. And we’re not talking about a few laps on Mario Kart – a lot of these games overlap nicely with engineering. So we should absolutely be exposing girls to coding.

Embedding technology into the curriculum would allow the teacher and the students to explore and overcome a lot of the preconceptions that exist around our industry. You might start by focusing on the role of a Software Engineer, then you might move on to stuff around Business Analysts and Project Managers.

People need to be aware of this from a much younger age. And it might be a case that if they are taught from young, suddenly in 20 years time we could end up with a disproportionately high number of women in tech, and then we need to attract more men.

So the curriculum is one piece of the puzzle. But it’s not the whole thing.

There are very few BAME women in tech – in fact, they’re practically non-existent. That’s often been pretty difficult for Amardeep as a BAME woman, that can be really hard for Amardeep.

“Sometimes when I'm in a place of work, honestly, I look around and nobody looks like me. I can't even identify with anyone,” she tells me. “And then people start saying my name incorrectly, or they make little subtle remarks that are racist, or I get called spicy or exotic or aggressive, all these little things. I think that is something that needs to be addressed.”

One time, she was eating an Indian breakfast at work, and a colleague said, “Oh my God, I can't believe you’re eating a curry for breakfast.”

“I was a lot younger, so my temper was a lot quicker, and I thought, ‘I'm about to get fired because I'm going to go in at this girl,’” Amardeep tells me. 

“Then another middle-aged white man said, ‘Well, what do you think they do for breakfast [in India]? You think they have a full English?’ And just with that one comment, the room burst into laughter and I felt a little bit more dignified.”

I thought that example was so eye-opening, because anyone – particularly a junior – could make a comment like that. But the impact is potentially huge. You could genuinely lose staff if you’re not on top of it.

So what does all of this tell us?

First off, it’s clear that our industry needs systemic change.

Some of my clients have begun implementing their own version of American football’s Rooney Rule, under which teams are required to interview at least one minority candidate for front-office roles.

My personal view is that the best person for the role should always get the job. At the same time, I like initiatives that ensure equality, so something like this could be the answer.

Another thing we’re seeing more of is companies asking recruitment agencies to submit candidate profiles without names, so there’s no discrimination when reviewing CVs. 

Well, the key point here is that women, or people from BAME backgrounds, don’t just need to start applying for tech jobs to solve our diversity problem. 

The tech industry needs systemic change. 

It needs Whatever measures we put in place, the bottom line is that tech needs to become a place where more women and people from BAME backgrounds actually want to work. Because if they can make the same amount of money, and get the same amount of happiness and passion from their work, but it's in an industry that’s much more diverse, then why would they ever want to work in tech?

What do you think? What needs to change in tech for us to build a more diverse tech workforce? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below!

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Ben Alexander helps ambitious businesses change the world through the power of technology. He’s Co-Founder and Director of technology recruiter Tech Intellect and AmarTi, a technical consultancy. He also hosts The Insider webinar and podcast series, where he interviews some of Europe’s most influential tech leaders. And he’s even learning Python in his spare time!