Recruitment firm Monster has unveiled the TechTalent Charter along with the support of several industry partners, in a bid to encourage tech companies to sign up and increase the amount of diverse talent within the sector.
Initially the Charter aims to address the challenges of equality in tech roles, with a long term plan of addressing wider issues surrounding diversity in the tech sector.
Currently there is a requirement in the UK for 745,000 tech workers by 2017 and one million by 2020 and only 17% of tech and telco workers in the UK are currently women.
With today’s launch businesses are being called upon to sign the Charter as founding signatories.
The Charter has also established six workstreams to provide support, information and guidelines to help organisations implement protocols: Best Practice in Recruitment; Best Practice in Retention; Marketing & Promotion; Annual Reporting & Measurement; Eco-system & Policy and Education & Talent Pipeline.
Sinead Bunting, Marketing Director UK & Ireland at Monster.co.uk, said: ‘With a looming digital skills gap that is critical for our economy’s growth, we need to show young people, current professionals and in particular, females, who are worryingly underrepresented in the tech workforce, that tech skills are increasingly essential to jobs and careers. We also need to highlight and remind industry that a diverse workforce will deliver tech solutions and services that will meet their customer base needs much better and as such not only be more representative of the UK population, but more commercially successful.
“There are so many excellent initiatives and organisations working in and around this area to raise awareness and make progress, but we recognise that to truly move the dial and effect change we are stronger working as a unified collective. We have a need and an opportunity to build a dynamic, representative and commercially successful tech workforce. However we do need to rethink and change how we build our talent pipelines, how we recruit and how we retain our tech staff. The Tech Talent Charter is a way we can all work together to make that happen and that is something we at Monster and in the Tech Talent Charter steering group are incredibly excited about. Please join us to make that change a reality. We really need your participation.”
Amali de Alwis, CEO of Code First Girls said: “Encouraging talented individuals to enter the technology sector, whether as graduates or at a later stage in their career, is something I believe passionately in, and is very much at the heart of the work we do at Code First Girls. Vital technology skills, whether in coding, data science, data security or UX/UI, now play a critical role in the way we live and work. With the UK looking at a needing further one million tech workers by 2020, we all have to take a serious look at how we manage talent in our companies and update restricting incumbent behaviour which are holding us back from continued success.
“This is the reason I became so heavily involved with the Tech Talent Charter. We need to ensure we are doing all we can to support all our businesses, whilst giving the candidates themselves the confidence to get involved in this dynamic and fast growing sector. I look forward to having you all join us on that journey, and working together to drive change in UK Business to supports our continued status and a global leader in tech, innovation and talent.”
Debbie Forster, Co CEO of Apps for Good, said: “It’s no secret that there is a digital skills gap in the UK, and ensuring young people and in particular women are playing a part in helping to fill this is crucial if we are to maintain our position as a leader in the digital and technology space.
“An important aspect of achieving this is thinking carefully about how we build the talent pipeline by working with schools and businesses to ensure we are encouraging and educating girls and boys from the word go, looking at how we engage and communicate the messaging around technology careers and how we are presenting the options available to them. The Tech Talent Charter is an important document to help guide businesses through this and I’m really excited about watching the movement grow, and help shape it as more organisations get involved.”
Businesses can support the TechTalent Charter at www.techtalentcharter.co.uk
