Over the past 20 years, I’ve been involved in many initiatives to increase the number of women in IT. I have come to the conclusion that, to make a difference, we need to do many things simultaneously, over long periods of time. These include mentoring, sponsorship or advocacy programmes, and making changes to recruitment, retention and career break processes. They also involve making sure that groups of candidates slated for promotion always include at least one woman and that interview panels are diverse. Men need to have skin in the game, being recognised and/or rewarded for making diversity changes. They need to shift the dial – and men who go out of their way to build diverse teams and hire great women are the most important change agents. We also have to emphasise the importance of STEM in education from the early years, training and supporting teachers so they are confident and inspirational teaching their subjects, making sure that the courses are interesting to girls, and encouraging girls to take STEM qualifications at any stage including lifelong learning. And we need more, consistent, long-term programmes. Employers need to hire a larger number of women and ethnically diverse people at the start of their careers. We need a different pipeline from the start to make sure there’s more choice in the pipeline for the senior roles. Only by many people and organisations doing many things, over sustained periods, will we get real and lasting change.

Rebecca George
BCS President 2020