In the previous chapter we saw how schools are working in a range of ways to encourage girls to engage with digital technologies and to consider careers and higher-level studies in computing. This chapter looks at the next stage of education: the higher education sector and its role in preparing and upskilling the computing professionals of the future.
When we consider participation of women in computing as a profession, it is important to examine the training, skills and education landscape. How do women get into IT professions, what training and education routes do they take, and what role can companies and IT employers play in increasing the diversity of those preparing to work in the sector?
BACKGROUND
Computer science (CS) is a relatively new academic subject compared to other more established science and engineering fields. Indeed, universities have not always been the route through which people have entered the IT workforce. In the early days of computing, for example at Bletchley Park in the 1940s, most of those who operated the large mainframe computers were women, and by the early 1960s women were being actively recruited as programmers (Abbate, 2012). Then, as organisations started to adopt computing systems for commercial purposes, these jobs became seen as office work, suitable for school leavers. Employment and industry strategy in Britain in the 1960s established a gender employment hierarchy and separate career paths in ‘new technology’ occupations, where women were effectively excluded from career progression (Hicks, 2017). Nevertheless, the vast majority of the women (and men) who entered new technology companies as they emerged in the 1960s did not come with CS degrees, and most were not graduates. On the contrary, although many had some pre-existing technical skills, most would be trained in bespoke systems by the companies that hired them, or gain qualifications via professional bodies such as BCS and industry-specific accreditation. Nevertheless, as adoption of computers within businesses expanded, the demand for specialist skilled graduates began to influence the development of higher education provision in this field.
Within higher education institutions the emerging academic subject of CS was often located in mathematics or engineering departments, disciplines that were already highly male dominated; thus, CS quickly adopted the same masculine cultures. This trend was exacerbated in the 1980s following the advent of home computers, which quickly became adopted (mainly) by boys and men, thus defining the culture of computing as geeky and masculine in the popular imagination (Margolis and Fisher, 2002). This was soon recognised as a problem, and initiatives to increase the numbers of women in computing and other science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields started to emerge (WISE Campaign, n.d.). At some universities this approach focused on access or conversion courses to attract women from other disciplines who had not had any previous technical education.
As digital systems became integrated into more and more sectors of the economy, together with the advent of the internet in the 1990s, there began to be concern among policy makers in the UK and Europe about women’s lack of basic competency in technology, the so-called gender digital divide. This began a focus on enabling women to acquire skills, as it became clear these would be needed for more and more aspects of economic and social life. Thus training and initiatives targeted specifically at women proliferated – mostly these consisted of vocational skills rather than degree-level study, although universities were also involved (Phipps, 2008).
Early efforts at redressing the gender balance were often focused on the deficit model, finding ways to help women catch up on skills or experiences that they had ‘missed out’ on. However, it quickly became apparent that the solution was not just about numbers but about culture. Especially at university level, you could not simply ‘add women and stir’, as Sandra Harding (1995) famously put it. What was required was a culture change within the discipline itself – ‘the goal is not to fit women into computer science as it is currently taught and conceived. Rather a cultural and curricular revolution is required to change computer science so that the valuable contributions and perspectives of women are respected within the discipline’ (Margolis and Fisher, 2002, p. 6).
Since these early days, the discipline of CS has evolved into a well-established field. This has included the emergence of many new sub-fields as technology has progressed and diversified, creating a wide range of specialist knowledge, to fulfil roles in all economic sectors (health, finance, media and so on) – not just the IT sector.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Despite these early efforts (and some intermittent success) to include more women, CS continues to be the most gender segregated subject area in UK higher education. The most recent figures at the time of writing, based on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data for CS students at UK universities, showed women making up only 15% of the total first-degree CS students (Advance HE, 2019). However, there may be a little room for optimism – applications for undergraduate CS degrees in England for the 2020 intake (June entry point) show the gender gap had narrowed by 1.3% from 2019 to 2020 and that applications from women had increased by 12% compared to 0.9% for men (BCS, 2020). Furthermore, the gender balance in CS subjects is better at postgraduate level, with women constituting 27% of research postgraduate and 28% of taught postgraduate students.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) application portal showed that for 2021 entry there were 2,110 CS-related bachelor’s degrees available from 183 higher education providers. A 2019 analysis looked at the distribution of students across different types of universities and showed that CS students (men and women) were more likely to be at post-1992 universities1 compared with students studying other traditional STEM subjects, such as physical sciences, maths and engineering (Robinson, 2019). Only 19% of CS students are at Russell Group universities.2
Looking at ethnicity, the study found greater ethnic diversity among CS students across all institutions compared to other subject categories, with particularly high representation of students from Chinese and South Asian backgrounds. From an intersectional viewpoint, female students identifying as Indian were the largest group among BAME women, while Black Caribbean women were the most under-represented (Robinson, 2019).
While these figures paint a bleak picture of subjects categorised under the heading of CS, it is likely that there are larger numbers of women on courses that do not fall into this category if they form part of an interdisciplinary or joint honours degree. For example, a study at the Open University found twice the proportion of women (35% compared to 17%) registered on joint honours degrees (Computing plus another subject) than the regular Computing degree. Interviews revealed that these women were actively choosing joint honours because they recognised the employability value of hybrid skills (Donelan et al., 2020). While most higher education institutions offer degree programmes in CS or Computing, many also offer combined or applied courses with other subjects; a visualisation based on the titles of courses is shown in Figure 3.1.
Figure 3.1 Titles of Computer Science courses available at UK higher education institutions for 2021 entry (Based on a search for ‘Computer Science’ courses on the UCAS website: www.ucas.com)
Universities are also increasingly offering more specialist degrees, in rapidly expanding areas of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), data science and cyber security. Courses focused on computer games, animation and other creative technologies have been successful in attracting and retaining a more diverse student cohort, as discussed in the case study on the University of the Arts London (UAL) below.
Case study: University of the Arts London
Short courses and degree programmes at the London-based Creative Computing Institute (CCI) – part of the University of the Arts London (UAL) – have succeeded in attracting high proportions of women. The MSc in Creative Computing, for example, has over 50% women students, and previously has had over 70%, with the BSc programme having over one third, compared to regular CS degrees with only 5–10% women. The CCI’s new suite of short courses, which are hosted on FutureLearn, have resulted in 40% women students across all of the creative computing short courses (45,000 learners).
Professor Mick Grierson, research leader at the CCI, says:
Normally computing is focused on industrial contexts, the language and focus on security, surveillance and finance which is an approach throughout computing education – this creates a ‘blokey feel’ to the culture which comes from this. But computer science for creative industries is just as important in its social, economic and cultural value as other application areas. And the good thing about the creative industries is that they are already reasonably diverse and there is a long history of women being at the forefront of new technologies in the sector.
The short courses that the CCI created with FutureLearn were not specifically targeted at women. However, as they had a focus on application areas that were culturally more diverse, they had a more diverse intake. There was one exception where there was a specific gender focus. The idea was that this would bring in an audience (men as well as women) who wanted to know more about how to integrate a feminist approach into technology development.
‘Designing a Feminist Chatbot’, a four-week online course, was developed by a team led by Charlotte Webb and Cressida Kocienski. Charlotte was a co-founder of Feminist Internet, a collective that was established at UAL in 2017 with the aim of exploring how feminist approaches could promote equality within internet products, services and systems. Having been launched at a public event, the collective evolved organically and this body of distributed knowledge has helped to shape this unique course.
Charlotte stresses the importance of senior-level commitment and support in enabling the course to be produced, saying, ‘the Dean of the CCI was keen to support the initiative as it fitted with our social justice, gender equity and anti-racist missions’. The team used and adapted the Feminist Design Tool3 to enable participants to consider gender and diversity at each stage of the design process – for example, considering questions such as whether to assign a gender to a character, how stakeholders will be represented, and whether bias might be introduced in data collection and AI techniques. On the course, students were able to learn and put into practice some basic coding skills, but just as importantly, says Charlotte, ‘they are grounded in approaches to equality that are going to be carried across to whatever they go into from a technical perspective’.
The development team spent £20,000 on marketing to try to recruit students from hard-to-reach groups, but later analysis showed that this conventional marketing didn’t actually attract that many of the students as most of them came from word of mouth (including recommendations via social media). Charlotte recommends that other learning providers should ‘spend time thinking about the network fit, and building marketing around your target audience is very helpful. Once you’ve identified your audience, meet them where they are on the internet.’
Diverse representation among course leaders and presenters has also been vital to the success of the CCI courses. As Mick says ‘You need to hire the right people to front the courses. We have hired some great leaders for our MSc and BSc programmes. The value of a person is in who they can bring and inspire to join the degree – rather than where their PhD was from.’
However, presenting in an online environment brings other problems. There was some concern among women staff that such prominent visibility might put them at risk of harassment online, and this was a barrier for some women who might otherwise have been part of the presentation team.
It is important too to ensure that staff are not just recruited to provide a diverse set of presenters. It is hard to recruit people into academic roles from non-traditional backgrounds, so universities need to invest in developing such people and offering ongoing development. ‘You have to qualify them to retain them,’ says Charlotte. It also takes extra money and time to hire people from marginalised backgrounds. Extra training and administrative time is needed to support people and this has to be covered as part of core costs. This is a challenge for many universities. As Mick says: ‘In CCI we are a small team and can be agile and can respond more quickly. We can make mistakes and correct them quickly. We have more autonomy than standard CS departments. Having a coherent team and shared vision is important. Inclusive culture is vital.’
Case study developed with the assistance of Mick Grierson,
Charlotte Webb and Cressida Kocienski
THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
What is it like to be a female CS student? While learning itself can be rewarding, for most women their study experience will be one of being in a minority. Regardless of their actual ability or experience, the masculine so-called brogramming culture of computing (Hicks, 2013) is endemic across campuses and can often make women students feel excluded and marginalised and struggle to fit in (Margolis and Fisher, 2002). Laddish behaviour can manifest in many ways, with sexist behaviour that can range from hostile to subtle and even benevolent, in the form of patronising assumptions about women’s preferences or abilities (Sexton et al., 2020).
These kinds of micro-aggressions within the learning environment accumulate over time to undermine a sense of belonging. The experience of being the only woman in team or group projects can often leave women feeling invisible or uncomfortable, or lead to them taking on an unequal share of the tasks (Fowler and Su, 2018). There is some evidence that women-only groups can provide an easier study environment for women students, but whether this is a desirable or practical solution is hotly debated, and it does not necessarily prepare students for the world of work (Hughes, 2014). The actual teaching environment is also important. Studies have shown that even the physical environment can affect a sense of belonging, with classroom or lab posters signifying and reinforcing geeky male stereotypes that can affect women negatively (Cheryan et al., 2009). And this applies just as much in online environments as it does within physical buildings (Cheryan et al., 2011).
EMPLOYMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION COMPUTER SCIENCE
The gender imbalance of CS students is also reflected in figures for those involved in the teaching and researching of CS in UK universities, with women comprising only 19% of academic staff in engineering and technology disciplines. According to the HESA, in 2018/19 there were 2,740 female and 11,715 male academic staff in engineering and technology, while at the most senior academic level only 15% of CS professors are women (HESA, n.d.). The career progression of academic computer scientists follows a typical academic career pathway. Across all subjects in the HE sector, there is more or less an equal distribution of genders within academic roles (100,000 women and 116,640 men) but there is a typical ‘leaky pipeline’ similar to that seen in industry, with fewer women achieving the most senior positions. This applies to both academic and management roles – only 29% of vice chancellors are women.
As in any workplace, the culture within CS departments in universities is crucial to whether women staff feel able to progress and advance their careers. In a male-dominated group culture, women may face a hostile or chilly climate whose features range from day-to-day micro-aggressions through to more overt gender-based discrimination. This accumulation of disadvantage – described by Peggy McIntosh (2004) as the ‘invisible knapsack’ – affects resilience and ability to progress. Moreover, within academia as a whole, career progression is subject to stringent promotion criteria that often value and reward externally funded research over teaching, a gendered career pattern that tends to favour men (Xu, 2008; Dengate et al., 2021).
INTERVENTIONS: WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Concern about low uptake of CS by women has been highlighted for decades, and there have been a number of university-based strategies to try to remedy this. Most of those reported have been small scale and based within a single institution. Interventions tend to be focused on one of three areas – recruitment, retention or progression.
The aim of recruitment-focused programmes is to increase the numbers of women entering courses. These programmes often connect to outreach work with schools (see Chapter 2) and focus on images and language used in marketing and communications. According to a Norwegian study, increasing the numbers of women is the most important strategy, not only affecting the symbolic perception of CS but also the student experience (Lagesen, 2007).
Retention initiatives are generally concerned with the student experience and ensuring that women students remain motivated and achieve their potential. This could involve curriculum changes as well as attention to the social and physical learning environment, including the teaching staff and classroom culture.
Progression initiatives are concerned with the transition into employment following graduation. Women CS graduates are less likely to go into employment in an IT role after graduating – 38% compared to 59% of men (BCS, 2017).
Many interventions that aim to increase the numbers of women but do not tackle structural problems are likely to be short lived, relying on ‘initiatives’ and funded programmes rather than being embedded in culture change that will be more sustainable. Fox et al. (2009) compared universities’ strategies for increasing numbers of women graduating in STEM and found that the most successful were those that took a holistic institutional approach. Those that just focused on recruitment and retention figures without examining underlying structural issues were not so successful. These holistic strategies included the engagement of administrative staff as well as academics and teachers, underpinned by training and workshops to raise awareness and capability. Above all, these sustainable organisational strategies exhibited strong and accountable leadership.
A successful whole-institution approach has been taken by Carnegie Mellon University in the USA and sustained over a number of decades (Margolis and Fisher, 2002; Frieze and Quesenberry, 2015). Examples of good practice that the university introduced included creating women student networks, mentoring between year groups, taking women students to conferences and involving students in real-life research projects from the start (i.e. programming for a purpose rather than in the abstract).
In the UK, the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics has one of the highest proportions of female undergraduates at 24%. In 2009/10, it had a similar enrolment pattern to much of the UK with only 13% female undergraduates on its Computing degree programmes. It too adopted a multifaceted approach in order to achieve this. According to the head of school, Professor Jane Hillston (2020), one key aspect focuses on creating a sense of belonging. Students take a first-year mathematics module alongside maths degree students where there are more women, meaning the female students start off in a more gender-equal environment.
A second strand was to develop a sense of community among the women CS students. In 2006 the School of Informatics set up the Hoppers network for women and more lately other minority-gender (i.e. nonbinary and trans) students. Activities include speaker events, social events and career-building workshops run by local employers. The visibility of this network has also helped with recruitment of the next cohort of women students, showcasing current female students and using them as advocates in outreach work.
The University of Durham introduced a similar holistic approach in 2018 and succeeded in doubling the number of women CS students in one year as a result, as outlined in the following case study.
Case study: University of Durham
Head of Department Gordon Love was given a blank canvas to set up a new CS Department at Durham University in 2018. His strong passion for diversity and inclusion meant that this became central to his overall strategy for the new department, with an ambition to make Durham the number one department in the UK for women in technology. The strategy was influenced by a high-profile external advisory board, one of whom suggested speaking with Sue Black, well known for her campaigning work for women and computing. As a result of their initial conversation, Gordon secured funding to hire Sue as a professor in the new department. As Gordon says:
I was looking for someone to take leadership of this area – typically what happens is that someone (junior) is given equality, diversity and inclusion as a brief and overloaded with work. Sue was an unusual hire – a high-profile name to raise our game in this area, not a traditional research professor, and so I needed the support of senior management right up to the vice chancellor.
Sue’s first step was to look at what had worked elsewhere, including in the USA at Carnegie Mellon University and Harvey Mudd College. There was no single magic recipe; instead, Sue and Gordon carried out a number of small changes that clearly communicated to both the internal audience and the world at large (social media) that diversity was important. This resulted in a collective effort that gained momentum and has clearly had a positive effect.
Sue describes what happened next:
I think loads of people think it’s because Gordon employed me at Durham – but that wouldn’t work on its own; it’s because we did all of those things together. To tackle a complicated problem you need a complicated solution so it’s a three-year story with loads and loads of people involved rather than two or three things we did differently and hey presto it all changed.
Part of the strategy was to build on what was already there, for example building the confidence and community of women students by taking groups along to ‘women in tech’ conferences such as the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, encouraging the students who had been the previous year to mentor the students who could go the next year and asking them to go into the class to give a presentation and talk to the newer students about it. This multiplier effect was significant and had an impact on recruiting new students.
There was already a Women in Tech group in the department and Sue aimed to build the community by making it more fun, finding out what the students wanted and then enabling them to organise activities and speakers and start to think about their future in tech careers. ‘Nothing we did was rocket science,’ she says, ‘but having that support for everything that we did (such as funding to take students to the USA for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing) made a big difference.’
Gordon describes how the external image of the department through its web presence is vital for representing the diverse vision: ‘On our website diversity is up front at the top of the page. Making very small changes like that is important. I consciously ensured diversity wasn’t down the list at the bottom.’ Presence on Twitter, Instagram and other social media played an essential role in increasing awareness of what Durham had to offer and current students were able to capitalise on their knowledge of appropriate channels and language. Real-life visibility was also important. On open days the department made sure that there were 50% women students and staff. This physical and virtual representation is making a real difference. As Sue says, ‘We are showcasing excellent young women in technology doing amazing things – that way we are going to encourage more girls into computing.’
Taking a holistic approach has been key, according to Gordon. He advises other departments to ‘integrate diversity into everything you do and ensure leadership see it as critically important. You’ve got to have staff and students on board to make a difference. Above all you need to care about it – diversity is not just a tickbox exercise.’
Case study developed with the assistance of Sue Black and Gordon Love
Working collaboratively across institutions
So far, this chapter has looked at initiatives that have been run at individual higher education institutions, but increasingly it is being recognised that a concerted effort across institutions may be more effective at bringing about culture change in the sector.
An institutional culture change approach has been widely adopted across universities in the UK, Ireland and Australia (and now being piloted in India) via the Athena SWAN award scheme. Individual departments are awarded Bronze, Silver or Gold status for their detailed analysis and progress on tackling gender inequality both for staff and students, and a large number of CS departments have now engaged with this process. Committing to a five-year action plan, they are making changes that nurture women’s career progression within the organisation as well as taking proactive measures to support female students. The Athena SWAN website lists a range of good practices from existing award holders that other CS departments are encouraged to adopt. Leadership, especially from heads of department, has been key to enabling these more long-lasting achievements. Without these structural changes, many initiatives come and go, dependent on the enthusiasm of one or two passionate advocates. CygnetS is a network of CS departments that are engaged with Athena SWAN and are able to share good practice and approaches between universities.
The UK has also seen the growth of networking targeted at women CS students. For example, the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium annual conference, initiated and organised by Hannah Dee, has been highly successful in bringing women CS students together and provides visibility and a platform for women to showcase their research.
BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium
The BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium is the UK’s first and foremost event for undergraduate and MSc students in the UK. The colloquium is hosted annually by a UK university, moving between universities each year so that the benefit (and cost) of hosting isn’t centred on one region of the country.
The aims of this event are:
- to provide a forum for women undergraduate and master’s students to share their ideas and network;
- to provide a stimulating series of talks from women in computing, from both academia and industry;
- to provide both formal (talks) and informal (networking) advice to undergraduate women about careers in computing from a female perspective.
The event features a great series of talks, a recruitment fair and a panel on computing careers. The centrepiece of the day is an opportunity for students to discuss their own work in the form of a poster contest, with cash prizes provided by industry sponsors. Through sponsorship, the event is able to pay travel and, if necessary, accommodation costs for poster contest finalists, which is vital to encourage undergraduate attendance. The day concludes with a networking social to encourage students to chat with each other and with the industry representatives present. The event at the time of writing is entering its 14th year and usually draws in the region of 200 attendees, having grown consistently since its inception in 2008.
The Institute of Coding
The Institute of Coding (IoC) is a large national consortium of educators, employers and outreach organisations that is committed to co-developing new courses and activities that will help a larger and more diverse group of learners into digital careers. It was launched in January 2018 in response to the UK’s digital skills gap, with £20 million in funding from the Office for Students.
The IoC (2020) says:
We’re focused on providing a fresh and disruptive approach to digital learning that incorporates industry input at all points and keeps the focus on diversity and inclusion. Together, we’re creating a change in the way we equip people with digital skills. The IoC was set up in 2018 funded by UK government Office for Students. Approximately 30 universities are taking part in this, with a major focus on increasing diversity within the CS and digital skills education.
One IoC output has been the creation of inclusive curriculum guidelines. This is a whole-university approach that recognises change needs to be implemented across a whole institution to become sustainable. It covers the curriculum content, delivery (including flexible models to accommodate students with caring responsibilities) and the classroom environment, and also advises on how to teach diversity competence to CS students, who will become the creators of technology and digital systems once they leave and begin to work in the industry (Herman et al., 2020, p. 38). Lancaster University has also developed a workshop for CS educators to raise awareness about unconscious bias and the need to promote a sense of belonging for all students.
The BRAID initiative
The BRAID initiative (Building Recruiting and Inclusion for Diversity) is a network of 15 universities in the USA that have been working together to implement strategies to increase the presence of women and students of colour in CS (Sax et al., 2016). They have all committed to some key strategies:
- developing new entry-level Computer Science courses for those without previous programming experience (who are often women) (Sax et al., 2018);
- building confidence and community through identity-based support groups and networks;
- creating alternative pathways for existing students into CS degrees – in the US system students do not select any particular degree programme when they first enrol (this means there are opportunities to offer taster courses in computing that can attract students to select CS as their ‘major’ – this is perhaps not so relevant to the UK, but combined honours or interdisciplinary degrees can offer this same approach);
- making the departmental climate more welcoming and gender neutral, including a focus on the head of department as a key change agent (Zimmerman et al., 2019);
- engaging in outreach with local schools, including building relationships between existing and prospective new students.
The BRAID initiative has adopted a longitudinal approach, acknowledging that change takes time. It has also built in research and evaluation across the partnership, which means that it is producing a robust evidence base for the effectiveness of different approaches. Its partners build in time to share expertise and good practice, with an annual gathering of all partners to share what they are learning.
Moving into employment
Moving into employment presents a particular set of barriers to graduate women, who are disadvantaged within IT recruitment. As the 2016 Shadbolt review showed, women are less likely to end up in ‘graduate’ jobs following their CS degree (Shadbolt, 2016). The number of female CS graduates in non-graduate roles is around 10 percentage points higher than the number of equivalent male graduates (Shadbolt, 2016, p. 36).
Graduate recruitment can be influenced by unconscious bias (see Chapter 4 for more detail) as well as algorithmic bias built into selection systems, resulting in fewer women applying for and then gaining entry into computing-related careers. Moreover, for women graduates there is a need for more awareness of jobs and careers within computing and IT – Shadbolt recommended that CS students need to be provided with more specific detail on the types of roles and industries that require their skill sets. Finally, the range of employment opportunities needs to include start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, not just the big graduate recruiters.
The role of internships and work placements in helping to secure employment after graduation has been shown to be effective in bridging this gap. The Shadbolt review observed that movement into employment for graduates was much higher among those who had taken ‘sandwich’ courses (where students spend one year on an industry placement) and recommended summer placements, work experience and other ways to get real work experience to increase employability. This is also evidenced in India, where industry internships offer a direct route into employment following graduation (Raghuram et al., 2017).
Networks make a difference to opportunities for employment. Up to 70% of jobs are never advertised but are found via word of mouth or other informal channels. This disadvantages women, who may not have access to such networks. Female IT specialists are notably less likely to obtain employment through the use of agencies or in-company contacts, and more likely to have been recruited through advertisements or direct applications (BCS, 2019, p. 19). Another source of contacts could be via BCS student membership, which can offer women graduates a route into established networks.
We should also keep in mind that many women graduates enter IT from different fields, not just CS. One report found that while 60% of female IT specialists had a degree or equivalent level of qualification, only 5% of women had a computing degree, compared to 14% of men in similar roles (BCS, 2019, p. 16).
RETURNERS
Returning to IT after a career break is particularly difficult. Especially after a break of more than two years, skills can become out of date and many women experience a lack of confidence. However, a major obstacle is the attitude of employers and recruiters, many of whom will not consider hiring women who have been out of work for a period of time, and fail to recognise the life skills and experience that many returners can bring (Herman, 2015).
The good news is that some larger companies now have returner schemes that have successfully enabled women to transition back into work. A strategy that many women have adopted is retraining and upskilling – universities need to ensure that there are flexible means of upskilling for those who are already graduates and may not need to or be able to afford to go through a second degree programme. Such programmes need to contain a combination of technical skills training and professional and personal development to enable women to build confidence and develop employability competences, including job-seeking, writing CVs and interview practice.
An example of a company that focuses specifically on recruiting women returners is FDM, a recruitment and training company whose CEO, Sheila Flavell CBE, is a strong advocate for women in technology (Women Returners, 2020). The FDM Returners Programme offers skills training, updating of knowledge to the latest technology and industry-recognised qualifications. Career advice and mentoring are also part of the programme. FDM offers work placements as a consultant for two years, and these can often be a foot in the door to permanent employment (see the case study on page 147 for more details).
Degree apprenticeships
In 2015 the UK government commissioned a major review of CS education and qualifications. The subsequent report highlighted the low employability outcomes for CS graduates who had academic knowledge but did not have the right attributes and skills for employment in industry (Shadbolt, 2016). Degree apprenticeships began around this time and have enabled a more integrated approach between industry and universities, ensuring that graduates are appropriately skilled for employment. They enable part-time study towards a degree for those already in work. Employers pay for the degree through what is called an ‘apprenticeship levy’, which is a government subsidy to encourage work-based learning, thus providing an affordable route for students who could otherwise not be able to pay for their own study.
Over 30 new standards have been developed in partnership with industry, to cover a range of specialist career paths in the digital sector. These differ from conventional CS degrees in that the learning needs to be demonstrated within a work-based context and must focus on developing the capacity and skills of those already in employment. The Digital Technology Solutions (DTS) apprenticeship has a number of specialism pathways including Cybersecurity, Network Engineer, Software Engineer and Data Scientist. The standards were developed in collaboration with industry, and students continue in employment throughout their degree. Sometimes employers recruit specifically for an apprentice, but they may also enrol their existing employees. BCS also has a number of digital apprenticeships (see BCS, 2021).
Apprentices spend about 20% of their work time studying, and their final-year project in the workplace needs to demonstrate the integration of all the required competencies to reach the agreed standard. The adoption of this approach offers opportunities for widening the diversity of CS students and has been embraced as a potential strategy for attracting more women into the sector.
Manchester Metropolitan University is one of the leading providers of the new DTS apprenticeships and 33% of its initial enrolments are women (see the following case study).
Case study: Manchester Metropolitan University
The Digital Technology Solutions (DTS) apprenticeship was first approved at Manchester Metropolitan University (Manchester Met) in 2015 and two cohorts of apprentices have now completed to graduation.
From an equality and diversity perspective the integration of a degree with an apprenticeship has a range of benefits according to Coral Grainger, apprenticeship development manager. It provides parity of esteem and career progression for those who have not previously studied for a degree, perhaps having come through vocational education. It helps with social mobility, assisting people who might not have been able to afford to go to university or get a student loan, and who do not have standard qualifications that are required for other degree programmes. Manchester Met’s degree apprenticeships have very good retention rates. Over a period of four years, apprentices study and learn, and having the goal of a degree qualification motivates them and keeps them on the programme.
However, one of the challenges with using apprenticeships to address gender imbalance is that degree providers (i.e. universities) do not directly recruit the apprentices – the employers select them, so there is a potential bias in who comes into the programme.
Coral describes what she has done to overcome these issues at Manchester Met:
What we can do is look at representation in imagery in our literature and make sure it’s diverse, and put these materials through gender-bias language-checking software. This might help increase the range of candidates who apply for the jobs that are advertised as integrated with apprenticeships – we can influence this aspect through our marketing. We have also been able to open up our own unconscious bias training to the employers we work with, so in that way we have influenced them to recruit a broader pool of candidates. All Manchester Met apprentices get a skills coach and the apprenticeship skills and behaviours they develop in the workplace over the four years can be aligned with their performance development plan in the business. So to some extent we can check that all our apprentices are getting the same opportunities within the workplace.
Responsibility for diversity in apprenticeships is shared between the employers and the university. There is a wide variety of employers engaged (from small and medium-sized enterprises to multinationals, and across many sectors) and this helps lecturers to understand the range of employment opportunities and routes into IT work. Working directly with employers in this way means there is a more collaborative type of learning and knowledge exchange because apprentices are already working within the field.
Coral has recently been working on developing a new Apprenticeship Standard for Digital User Experience, which involved working with the BBC, Magnetic North and other employers. As Coral says:
I’ve not spoken to a business that hasn’t said, ‘Wow, this is a great apprenticeship standard’ – employers say ‘I wish I could do this programme.’ It’s been well received. My role is to talk to businesses about their talent requirements and see if we have an apprenticeship programme that suits their needs. I am the Apprenticeships Unit lead for the new School of Digital Arts, which opens next year [2021] at Manchester Met. Creative Digital Design will also launch next year and I’m making sure that the business voice is reflected in the curriculum.
Finally, with new apprenticeship standards being developed, Coral feels there is also the opportunity to embed diversity competence as a requirement within new training programmes, making apprentices consider diversity and inclusion requirements in their own workplace and thereby influencing the workplace culture.
Case study developed with the assistance of Coral Grainger
Generalist master’s
Another pathway to increasing the diversity of learners is what used to be called a conversion course, also known as a ‘generalist master’s’. These types of courses are usually at master’s level, and, because recruitment is aimed at graduates from non-CS disciplines, these qualifications tend to attract a much higher proportion of women. This is not a new phenomenon – they have been in existence for over 30 years. But there has been a recent increase in the number of institutions offering these types of master’s programmes, especially among universities that are part of the Institute of Coding. At least a dozen new postgraduate programmes have been developed in AI and data science across the Institute of Coding. Some of these have been specifically targeted at different sectors, such as health and engineering, thereby providing upskilling for those without a CS background.
Flexible learning
While for many the ideal university experience is a full-time campus-based degree, more and more universities are offering a range of flexible learning options, and these are particularly valuable for women who combine study with family care. A core hours policy can ensure that no students are unable to attend lectures by avoiding scheduling them in the early morning or later afternoon. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these flexible and remote learning options have been widely adopted by many conventional universities.
Flexibility can cover the time, location and mode of study. Most universities offer some sort of mix of learning media and platform, ranging from fully online universities (such as Birkbeck and the Open University) through to those that offer a blended learning approach (with some face-to-face lectures but also online delivery).
Increasingly, many IT professionals come into the industry after undertaking informal learning, such as bootcamps, hackathons and MOOCs (massive open online courses)4 or other online courses. This approach has been seen as a way to circumvent the traditional pipeline and increase greater diversity within the sector. There are many nongovernmental and community organisations, activists and campaigners outside formal education that have been successful in reaching a much wider pool of girls and women. Across the UK there are also examples of regional and nation-specific programmes, such as TechnoCamps in Wales (as described in Chapter 2).
CTRL Your Future
One recent example of informal learning is the approach taken by the Institute of Coding’s CTRL Your Future campaign. Its focus has been on changing the traditional image of computing and highlighting new routes into digital skills. Therefore, its campaigns have linked digital skills to gaming, fashion, activism and creative industries. Connections are made through existing networks and social media to access young people from diverse communities who would otherwise not consider entering CS studies – for example, LGBTQ+ people or those from Black communities.
LEARNING FROM INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
This chapter has focused on higher education institutions in the UK, but IT is a global industry so it is important not to see this issue solely with a British focus. Many members of the UK’s IT workforce were not born and educated in the UK, and similarly many CS graduates from UK universities may end up working in other countries either temporarily or permanently. There will continue to be a global circulation of talent, so the way to attract women into CS courses and IT professions must also consider the recruitment of overseas students and migrants who come to study and work in the UK. Thus, it is worth looking at what works in other countries where women are more highly represented in IT, such as India.
The situation in India is of particular interest as there is a much higher proportion of women entering IT careers than in the UK, up to 50% in some areas (Varma and Kapur, 2015). However, these graduate women are recruited not only from CS programmes but also from other STEM backgrounds, such as engineering (Raghuram et al., 2017; Sondhi et al., 2018). Women studying IT at India’s Institutes of Technology feel a sense of belonging and perceive CS education as female friendly (Saxena, 2021).
A complex set of reasons underlie this, but successful recruitment of women into the IT sector is helped by a combination of campus recruitment and high-profile advertising (including billboards) directly targeting women. However, overwhelmingly there is a positive perception of women entering IT, and the profession is seen as both lucrative and offering career prospects and status. This includes positive encouragement from parents and families for their daughters to enter the sector, which is in contrast to the lack of encouragement and stereotyping prevalent in the UK. The perceived benefits of working in the sector include onsite childcare and free transport to and from the office, as well as the prospect of international assignments leading to a global career.
While strategies are not necessarily transferable across countries (e.g. due to differing economic, social and educational contexts), what this clearly demonstrates is that perceptions of appropriateness of computing and IT as a suitable subject of study for women and girls are culturally specific and also time specific – which means there is the potential for this to change.
What can employers do?
- Sponsor and speak at the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium.
- Design recruitment campaigns specifically targeted at women.
- Offer to join the industry advisory board at a local university.
- Build relationships with universities for recruitment, in addition to asking agencies for diversity in candidates.
- Target recruitment – develop closer relationships with CS departments that can target messaging to their female students.
- Collaborate with universities to provide internships and work placements – these are known to help women develop a ‘sense of belonging’.
- Offer role models and mentors to final-year women students prior to graduation.
- Consider offering degree apprenticeships for current or new employees.
- Employ women returning from career breaks via returner schemes.
- Broaden the pool of applicants for new posts to include those with non-traditional qualifications and graduates in subjects other than CS.
What can universities and colleges do?
- Make sure that your institution is signed up to Athena SWAN, and use your action plan to develop processes, policies and culture to support gender equality.
- Athena SWAN teams in Computer Science departments should connect with the Cygnets network to share good practice between universities.
- Check your marketing and communications for gendered language and images.
- Develop a mentoring scheme – either between year groups or linked to industry.
- Showcase women researchers and role models working in CS within your materials and on your website.
- Start a network and/or hold targeted events for women CS students – and make these visible on your website and via social media.
- Provide flexible learning and upskilling courses for women returners.
- Consider ‘creative computing’ courses to diversify the student intake and build pathways into mainstream degrees.
What can individuals do?
- If you work in the industry, become a mentor via your local university or the WISE Campaign.
- Become a volunteer role model for primary or secondary schools via the STEM Ambassadors.
SUMMARY
This chapter has examined the higher education sector, which plays a major role in preparing and upskilling the computing professionals of the future. It started by looking at the figures for enrolment of students, which continue to show women as under-represented in most CS courses. However, a closer look at the figures reveals differences across the wide range of subjects within the discipline, and between different institutions. CS departments across the UK are committed to improving gender equality for both students and staff, and they continue to work on creating learning and working environments where women feel a sense of belonging. They continue to share expertise and good practice via networks such as CygnetS and the Institute of Coding.
The case studies in this chapter showcased new initiatives and approaches that are beginning to break the mould, for example taking a holistic departmental approach that prioritises gender equality, introducing more interdisciplinary curriculum choices and engaging with employers via degree apprenticeships. International perspectives are important to help bring new insights, and CS educators in the UK have been inspired by initiatives in some US universities as well as lessons from countries such as India, where women are more highly represented in IT and computing.
In the next chapter we turn to examine one of the key factors facing women who are seeking to enter or progress careers in computing: unconscious bias.
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NOTES
1 Post-1992 institutions are those that became universities after 1992. Many were formerly polytechnics with a historically more vocational focus.
2 There are 24 Russell Group universities. These are research intensive and generally have higher entry requirements.
3 Developed by Feminist Internet and Josie Young. See FutureLearn (n.d.).
4 In the UK, FutureLearn is the major platform for providing short online courses, most of which are produced in collaboration with higher education institutions.