Diversity in Tech 2021 report

The tech workers in our survey are based in all 12 regions of the UK, with the majority in London and the South East.

Following the dramatic shift in working patterns, accelerated by the pandemic, we also asked companies if they had adopted remote working, location-agnostic tech teams by default. The responses confirmed that this was the case for 10% of TTC Signatories – accounting for just under 23,000 workers. This was the third most commonly reported role location classification after London and the South East.

Data is arguably the bedrock of innovation. Without it, even the best efforts to uncover insight can paint an untruthful picture of what’s actually going on. As referenced in the foreword of this report, without effective and trustworthy measurement of D&I innovation, related efforts will remain hindered by uncertainty about their efficacy.

Plus, the impact of forging ahead with unvalidated diversity and inclusion programmes can cost a business more than the actual price of running them. In research conducted last year, TTC found that whilst 80% of UK tech workers agreed that D&I initiatives were necessary, one in five felt that the interventions their employers used could be counterproductive or even harmful.

If employees do not trust that D&I data is being collected, managed and acted on in meaningful and valuable ways, it potentially undermines any efforts to persuade them to share any personal information – even if it can benefit them or others.

In this section, we explore the cluster of difficulties indicated in our Signatory dataset — specifically around how to retrieve good D&I data, and how to manage and use it in the most effective way possible.

The business community’s understanding of different diversity lenses is maturing. More organisations are identifying gaps in their data and seeking to include new lenses in their data collection. One example of this concerns ethnicity.

We asked Signatories to tell us which diversity data they collected from employees by asking employees to self identify. Just 61% of Signatories said they collected data on ethnicity; 31% of their tech employees had not been asked to disclose their ethnicity.

If you are among the Signatories who did not ask their employees about their ethnicity, and you would like to do so, please refer to the TTC Open Playbook, which includes resources on How to collect workforce diversity and inclusion data and a D&I data survey template and suggested survey questions.

Whilst the collection of ethnicity data is becoming a more mainstream practice, there are other areas of opportunity which Signatories have highlighted, in particular, ‘invisible lenses’ of diversity – for example, someone’s socio-economic background or whether they are neurotypical or neurodiverse. The table below shows the percentage of organisations that reported collecting diversity information based on this lens, and is also supported by qualitative data. In relation to the latter, several Signatories said they were not clear on how to collect data on socio-economic background and neurodiversity.

If you are looking to start collecting data on the socio-economic backgrounds of your employees, please look at the TTC Open Playbook chapter on Social Mobility, which includes a toolkit from the Social Mobility Commission on how to gather and interpret socio-economic data from your workforce.

The Government has also produced a practical toolkit, in collaboration with CIPD, on Recruiting, managing and developing people with a disability or health condition: A practical guide for line managers.

To learn more about this area, you can view the below recording of the 'This Works: Invisible Lenses' session from TTC's 2022 Inclusion in Tech Festival.

Several Signatories who reported D&I data measurement challenges said they were struggling with related processes, due to government regulations’ failure to facilitate consistent business practices around D&I issues. In cases where only limited diversity categorisations were permitted, such as with gender reporting for HMRC payroll, it prevented companies from having a single, source-of-truth dataset.

Organisations also reported difficulties in managing information when ethnicity data was caught by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whereas gender data fell outside its scope. Multiple systems and datasets would therefore be required to measure complete D&I data.

Signatories are not just having a tough time collecting and managing D&I data in the UK. The picture is further complicated when organisations operate internationally. Some Signatories reported difficulties in executing a company-wide D&I data strategy that could be effective and practical across borders — as cultural norms, and laws governing permitted questions, vary from country to country; equally, areas of focus shift relative to the cultural sensibilities at play.

Moving beyond responses related to processes, a key theme emerged amongst our Signatories: difficulty in persuading their employees to disclose data surrounding diversity.

This included people who were unresponsive to requests for such information, and those who participated in the data collection exercise but preferred not to disclose personal details.

We also looked at the 11% of employees who declined to disclose information about their ethnicity and considered why this number was so high. Signatories reported human and cultural differences in the way people responded to requests for information. However, this could be due to poor reporting structures, employee confidence in inclusivity, and ethnicity profile awareness, among other reasons. Signatories also mentioned having trouble convincing employees to share, in particular, information about ethnicity, disability, and orientation.

To learn more about this area, you can view the below recording of the 'This Works: Using DE&I Data' session from TTC's 2022 Inclusion in Tech Festival.

Whilst improvements to diversity have clearly been hampered by difficulties in collecting and managing data — along with the tech talent shortages mentioned throughout this report — there is light at the end of the tunnel. Tech bootcamps are giving people access to opportunities in the tech ecosystem, while also providing a way for organisations to obtain valuable D&I data at the point of training and recruitment.

Further, these programmes are well positioned to reach many currently underrepresented talent pools. In our recent focus groups with a number of our Signatories, we found that many companies that operate or work with tech bootcamps do so as a way of expanding their access to tech talent and improving diversity in tech.

In a TTC survey of 250 working-age people in the UK, we asked hiring decision-makers and influencers about the potential impact of tech skills bootcamps on hiring and success in a role. Their overall awareness of these targeted training programmes was high — 89% of respondents knew of them; 54% of whom said they had had direct experience with learners from tech skills bootcamps.

Among those who were aware of tech skills bootcamps, paid and free online platforms such as Codeacademy and Udemy emerged as the most widely known – 64% had knowledge of programmes. In comparison, 47% knew about recruitment bootcamps, while 46% were aware of code bootcamps paid for by learners.

The survey found that younger respondents were less aware of online platforms (54% of under 30s) and recruitment bootcamps (31%). This age cohort also demonstrated less awareness of government-funded training — 39% knew about this, compared with the overall average of 44%. However, these younger individuals were more aware of code bootcamps paid for by learners — 53% of under 30s knew about them, compared to the overall average of 46%.

We asked respondents to share their impressions of candidates who’ve taken part in tech bootcamps, versus those who entered tech roles through more traditional routes. The resulting data shows subtle differences overall. The greatest distinctions in respondent perceptions of bootcamp candidates versus their traditional counterparts were around understanding of role expectations and the likelihood of staying with a company:

• 38% of respondents said bootcamp candidates had a better understanding of what was expected of them in their role; when assessing traditional candidates using the same criteria the corresponding figure was 26%

• 37% of respondents said bootcamp candidates had a higher likelihood of staying with a company; 22% of them believed this of traditional candidates

In all the categories covered in the survey – professionalism, likelihood of staying with a company, technical skills, soft skills, understanding expectations of their job and interpersonal skills – bootcamp candidates performed better than traditional candidates. The smallest divergence was around interpersonal skills – 31% of respondents said bootcamp candidates performed better on these, compared to 30% of their traditional counterparts.

When asked how successful or unsuccessful tech skills bootcamp candidates had been in the hiring process or in their tech role, just 2% of respondents selected ‘unsuccessful’. A sizeable 83% chose either ‘mostly successful’ or ‘very successful’, with a further 14% selecting ‘neither successful nor unsuccessful’.

To learn more about this area, you can view the below recording of the 'This Works: How Companies Leverage Alternate Routes' session from TTC's 2022 Inclusion in Tech Festival.

There is no panacea for the multi-faceted pain point of hiring diverse talent amidst a talent shortage. But, as a rule of thumb, there is strength in numbers. Beyond circumstance, the root of the problem – systemic issues related to shortages of diverse talent with the right skills – is perhaps best tackled through inter-organisational collaboration. In joining forces, within the tech community, to improve such systems, it is important that we cast our gaze to the future. In this way, we also address the current dearth of diversity in senior leadership positions. Today’s young hires will be the middle weights and senior leaders of tomorrow.

In a similar vein, there is a role SMEs can play now, which will positively impact the future tech talent pipeline. These companies may be able to more readily implement new D&I practices than larger, more complex multinationals. Such progressive systemic changes feed into the market at scale later, as these trailblazing companies grow. SMEs may be seen as training grounds for developing tech talent and if successful, encourage larger businesses to follow their lead.

There are, of course, solutions to aspects of this central hiring problem right under our noses, in the here and now. While it’s true that women rank salary amongst their highest priorities when considering a job opportunity (according to the aforementioned We Are Tech Women and TTC research), other attractor factors exist – such as flexible working options. In early 2021, the Behavioural Insights Team ran a randomised controlled field trial with over 5.5 million job seekers and found that job ads advertising flexible working attracted up to 30% more candidates. Women were more responsive to notices which mentioned part-time working options than men. Ads that went into detail about each respective flexible working arrangement were more popular with both women and men (compared to the control job offer).