Digital Technology: Females

(asked on 12th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to increase the number of females working in the technology sector.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 19th January 2023

We recognise that the Tech Sector can only reach its true potential if it is fully representative of society. This Government is committed to this mission, which is why we have supported the Tech Talent Charter (TCC) since 2016. The TTC gathers data and reports on diversity statistics from 700 organisations across all sectors. This approach fosters collaboration and innovation to create a more inclusive and diverse tech workforce. For example, the TTC’s annual diversity in tech report is a key resource that encourages businesses to hire diverse talent, as well as sharing the best diversity and inclusion practices across the sector.

We recognise that digital skills are fundamental to ensuring everyone can make the most of a digital future. As the department that leads on digital skills, we are focusing on broadening and deepening the pool of talent. The Digital Skills Council convenes stakeholders from across the sector to deliver industry led action on driving the growth of the digital workforce, including widening the skills pipelines, and ensuring Tech roles are accessible for all. One of the council’s objectives is to promote mechanisms to provide increasingly diverse access to digital roles and digitally enabled roles.

We are also funding a new generation of AI talent through scholarships, each worth £10,000, supporting underrepresented groups, including women, to undertake AI and Data Science Conversion Courses. The conversion courses provide a masters in AI and data science, and allow those from a non-STEM background to learn the skills needed to secure employment in the UK’s cutting-edge AI and Data Science sectors. Emerging findings show that the programme is driving increased diversity - 76% of the scholarships so far have been awarded to women, leading to a 32% increase of women on the courses against comparable benchmarks.

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