Tech Talent Charter receives £189,000 funding from UK government to support diversity in tech

Tech Talent Charter wants to reach 600 companies by the end of 2020 
Mimi Thian / Unsplash
Amelia Heathman17 September 2019

Investing in the future of women in tech doesn’t come cheap. The Tech Talent Charter, the nationwide initiative set up to help organisations deliver greater parity amongst their technical staff, wants to have 600 companies on its roster by the end of 2020.

In order to achieve that goal, the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is announcing a third round of funding in TTC today worth £189,000, bringing its total funding to £359,000 to date.

Speaking about the funding, secretary of state for DCMS Nicky Morgan said: "Diversity is not just a moral imperative for companies; it also makes good business sense. It is vital industry takes steps to make sure everyone has the opportunity to shine in our world-leading tech sector.

"The government is doing our bit to help by more than doubling funding for the Tech Talent Charter so businesses have the support they need to build inclusive teams of people from all backgrounds. I want to see more companies get behind the Tech Talent Charter so we can get support for this initiative right across the sector."

Signing up for the TTC means companies will join its mission to tackle the gender imbalance in the tech industry. At the moment, around 19 per cent of tech roles in the UK are held by women; the TTC aims to increase this to 50 per cent. Not only are there less women in tech roles, they also earn less than their male counterparts do. Recent research by DCMS revealed that women in the digital sector earn 21.5 per cent less than men earn, showing there is much work to be done to achieve balance.

As a result, the Charter is about more than businesses simply pledging to attempt to reach this 50/50 gender split. TTC’s CEO Debbie Forster says the funding will also help strengthen the Charter’s resources to help businesses improve their diversity, including a toolkit and open-source playbook full of the different ways companies are tackling this on the ground.

Earlier this year, the TTC launched its first report tracking gender diversity across tech roles in the UK. Companies such as BAE Systems, Deloitte and Channel 4 provided data for the report which showed that companies were struggling to attract and retain women in engineering and programmer roles where often the gender split is 85 per cent male and 15 per cent female. Statistics like this have helped to inform the resources it offers to businesses across the UK.

Forster added: “Businesses now recognise they need to do all they can to bring diverse talent into their organisations. But it is not enough to just try to “catch” people from under-represented groups – real cultural change needs to happen within businesses to find, attract and retain talent. Finding and sharing new strategies to harness the skills of diverse talent is at the heart of everything we do whether that’s encouraging companies to embrace retraining or return to work schemes or insight on retaining talent.

“[The funding] will enable TTC to focus on finding new ways for the signatory community to collaborate, access new talent pools and improve their approaches to inclusion.”

Whilst the conversations around improving diversity in the tech industry have grown in recent years, it’s important for businesses of all sizes to be shown to be doing something about it, instead of just talking. That’s why initiatives such as TTC and organisations like Colorintech are so important.

Recently, Colorintech announced a partnership with Facebook to increases the number of applicants and hires at the tech company who come from diverse backgrounds – the first time the tech giant has established a major partnership focused on diversity in Europe.

Speaking about the partnership, Colorintech’s co-founder Ashleigh Ainsley said: “For far too long minorities have been excluded from Europe's tech ecosystem. We are excited to embark on this partnership with an organisation that truly has the scale to make a meaningful difference, and connect opportunity for everyone.”