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<p>The UK Digital Strategy set out our commitment to enabling a more diverse digital
workforce. As the digital revolution progresses, many more jobs will require digital
skills and many more tech roles will be created, both in technology companies and
in the general economy. We cannot afford for women, who we know only make up 19% of
the tech workforce (Tech Nation Report 2018), to be excluded from or unable to progress
within these roles.</p><p> </p><p>While there is substantial progress that still needs
to be made, there are also significant initiatives aiming to solve the issue.</p><p>
</p><p>For example, over 270 companies, from international tech giants right through
to start-ups, SMEs and charities, have already signed the Tech Talent Charter (TTC)
- an industry led initiative, supported by Government. The TTC gives organisations
tangible actions and principles they can adopt to change their hiring and retention
practices to become more gender-diverse and commits signatories to measuring the diversity
profile of their UK employees and to share this data for (anonymous) collective publication
in an annual report.</p><p> </p><p>There are also other industry-led programmes, across
the tech ecosystem, doing valuable and innovative work to help make tech more diverse.
These include the #SheMeansBusiness initiative (by Facebook in collaboration with
Enterprise Nation and FSB); PWC’s Tech She Can charter, focused on getting more school-age
girls to choose STEM subject and see a career in tech as a viable option for them;
and Backstage Capital, which is an investment fund committed to investing in start-ups
with diverse founders.</p><p> </p><p>The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Local
Digital Skills Partnership (LDSP), launched in Coventry this month, has increasing
diversity built in from the start. The PWC-led Tech She Can project mentioned above
has piloted their Tech We Can lesson plans in 4 schools in the Coventry area (all
with very diverse and different pupil-bases), with a view to replicating and scaling
the programme nationally after the pilot phase. In a similar vein, TTC has created
regional ‘communities’ of tech employers to share best practice on regional diversity,
with the WMCA LDSP a future regional focus for this work.</p>
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