CWJobs partners with Tech Talent Charter

At CWJobs, we’re supporters of increasing diversity in the tech industry. Some topics we’ve drawn awareness to include how companies can help close the gender gap in IT and why the tech sector is a place where autistic workers can thrive.

To further our advocacy of promoting gender diversity, we’ve partnered with Tech Talent Charter. We appreciate the importance of their work and we’re looking forward to contributing to the development and retention of an inclusive and diverse workforce.

Delivering greater diversity in UK tech

The Tech Talent Charter (TTC) is a commitment by organisations to deliver greater diversity in the UK’s tech workforce. Signatories of the charter make a number of pledges in relation to their recruitment and retention policies and best practices.

The Charter was supported in the UK government’s policy paper on the UK Digital Strategy in March 2017 and invites organisations of all sizes and industry sectors to join.

Future-proofing the industry

Statistics on diversity in the UK’s tech sector often make for discouraging reading. In CWJobs’ own report on Women in IT, we found that most key decision makers in the industry (87%) agree that there is a gender imbalance weighted in favour of men in tech roles. We’ve also had female recruitment consultants share their daunting experiences of gender diversity in IT.

Initiatives like the Tech Talent Charter encourage a more diverse, inclusive, fair and commercially successful tech workforce and industry. The Charter’s own research suggests that just 17% of tech workers in the UK are women and that only one in ten females are currently taking A-Level computer studies.

When set against the backdrop of the UK’s current digital skills shortage, where the UK needs one million more tech workers by 2020, it’s clear why organisations like Tech Talent Charter are important to the future of the industry.

Tech Talent Charter CEO, Debbie Forster, comments;

We’re delighted to have CWJobs become a TTC signatory and for partnering with us on our annual report.  The case for building more inclusive and diverse tech teams is absolutely clear and it is great having CWJobs help us ‘move the dial’ in this area.

Tackling diversity head-on

Signatories of the Charter fully acknowledge that diversity is about more than just gender. However, the low representation of women in tech is one of the most pressing issues. The Charter believes that actions relating to gender will lead to more diversity in other workforce demographics.

As the Charter states on its website, ‘half the population cannot be ignored’. As such, signatories are encouraged to tackle gender diversity head-on by making the following pledges:

• To support attraction, recruitment and retention practices that are designed to increase the diversity of the workforce
• To define a timetable for change and implement the strategy that is right for their organisation
• To measure the diversity profile of their UK employees and to share this data for (anonymous) collective publication.

In partnering with Tech Talent Charter, we look forward to helping increase diversity and inclusion in the industry. This year has already seen many positive developments with more companies adopting flexible working, advertising salaries and removing gender bias from recruitment and we hope to see these developments continue.

Organisations interested in joining Tech Talent Charter can sign up on their website. Upon joining, companies will need to make a number of pledges in relation to future staff development, recruitment and retention. In return, the Charter pledges to provide PR and promotion, access to Annual Data Reports and updates to best practice guidelines for navigating the journey to diversity.