Tech Talent Charter Diversity in Tech Report 2020
It’s no secret that the last year has been a time of great turbulence. As we live through a global pandemic, the Tech Talent Charter (TTC) continues to work to drive change.
techUK is a founding signatory of the Tech Talent Charter - a commitment by organisations to a set of undertakings that aim to deliver greater diversity in the tech workforce of the UK, one that better reflects the make-up of the population.
Importantly, the Charter states that all signatories must provide data on their own workforce each year so that we can measure success and make more impactful, measurable changes as an industry for the future. Gathered from 418 organisations, the dataset covers 161,859 people working in technical roles in the UK and we estimate this represents around 13-14% of the current UK tech-skilled labour force, now making TTC’s dataset comparable in size to the equalities datasets provided by the ONS.
“What gets measured gets done” is a phrase we use a lot when talking about diversity. This report not only offers a snapshot of progress amongst the TTC signatory base, but it is also designed as a tool to assess a company’s diversity in comparison to businesses of similar circumstances. The intention is that you will review the benchmarking diagrams, orient your own organisation’s performance on the diagram and then seek to improve performance in areas where you fall below average for companies of your size or industry.
Key highlights from the report:
- Across TTC Signatories women represent 25% of technical role holders compared with the UK average of 17%.
- Organisations are most prepared to measure gender and disability diversity, but also ethnicity and age.
- 43% of companies have skills initiatives specifically to increase D&I in tech roles. A third of organisations have specific programmes to increase gender diversity while almost a quarter are trying to increase ethnic diversity.
- In the wake of the pandemic, a quarter of businesses actually planned to make D&I more of a focus in order to emerge from the pandemic stronger and more resilient (60% said the prioritisation of D&I would be maintained at the existing level and just 14% reported it would be less of a priority).
- Of the organisations who are running initiatives designed to improve diversity in tech, 95% are running initiatives that target the working age population and 35% of TTC organisations are focusing on initiatives aimed at those in pre-18 education.
You can read the full report here and join the conversation at the Tech Talent Charter's Inclusion in Tech Flexi Festival on 24, 25 and 26 February 2021.
Authors
Nimmi Patel
Nimmi works on all things skills, education, and future of work policy, focusing on upskilling and retraining. Nimmi is also an Advisory Board member of Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (digit). The Centre research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments.