Tech Talent Charter is coming to Leeds with unique insights on the region

The Tech Talent Charter (TTC) is one of the UKs leading organisations on diversity, inclusion and tech talent. Started in 2015, this non-profit is a membership group of the UKs leading tech businesses up and down the UK. Their mission is to help businesses develop diverse tech workforces, that fuel both growth and social inclusion.

The TTC is free to join and all their resources are also free to use, with just one caveat: every year you have to put your data where your mouth is, and participate in an annual diversity and inclusion (D&I) survey. The TTC then uses this data from hundreds of companies to serve back top insights into what companies are doing when it comes to their tech talent pipelines and their D&I strategy. These insights include regional views of what’s happening in key tech centres like Leeds.

Last week TTC were at Leeds Digital Festival, where Debbie Forster, TTC’s CEO, spoke to Minister Paul Scully to launch their latest report on attrition of women in tech. Forster said:

“We are so delighted to launch our attrition report “Why Women Leave Tech Roles” in Leeds this month. It’s the perfect place to release this research about how to retain women in tech, given that Leeds is really leading the UK when we think about certain aspects of gender inclusion”.

The Diversity in Tech report covers a wide variety of areas, including eight different diversity lenses, crowdsourced D&I plans created from hundreds of company D&I strategies. Some key findings from the report include:

1. 28% of tech workers are gender minorities, slightly higher than past years (+1-2%).
2. Only 35% of companies are measuring non-binary gender diversity.
3. 25% of tech workers belong to ethnic minority groups, compared to 20% reported last year.
4. Average disclosure rates for ethnic identity are at 76-86%.
5. 22% of senior tech roles are held by gender minorities – 6% lower than tech roles overall.
6. Ethnic diversity almost halves in senior roles from 25% to 13%.
7. D&I measurement and practice on social mobility lags far behind other areas including age, religion and orientation.
8. Flexible work options are widely available for tech employees and nearly half (47%) have the option to remote work as much as they like, from wherever they like.
9. Neurodiversity emerged as a distinct area of interest; the number of organisations measuring it doubled to 53%, compared to last year.
10. Mental health and wellbeing and reproductive health issues such as menopause and fertility are areas of focus for many organisations, especially in relation to gender, age and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

To bring their report findings to life, this small and mighty team have been hosting a series of roadshows across the UK, to visit key tech hubs and highlight exclusive insights about each region’s tech talent pipeline. The team will also be focusing on key topics companies have highlighted as areas of priority including gender diversity, diversity in senior roles and leadership, inclusive career development and progression programmes, and ways to bring experienced tech talent back into the tech workforce.

The TTC will be in Leeds on 10th October with an exclusive roadshow for the city. Sign up for one of the last few seats here.

A taster of the sort of insights you can expect include exclusive findings like these:

1. Leeds tech businesses are leading the UK when it comes to gender inclusion.
2. More than half of tech businesses in Leeds and the surrounding area recognise and include more than two genders in their business systems.
3. This is 15 points higher than the UK average.

The TTC will also be sharing their free diversity benchmarking calculator which allows any business to input their diversity metrics and generate an instant report on how they are comparing on diversity to other businesses in their region, size bracket and industry. The calculator lets you download your report for free as a tool to use internally in your People strategy.