The latest figures from UCAS have revealed that more women are being trained to code by social enterprise Code First: Girls, than were enrolled in computer science degrees in 2017.

Code First: Girls CEO, Amali de Alwis, who revealed the figures, found that of the 27,400 people accepted onto a computer science degree, only 3,750 were women – 13.7% of the total.

This figure pales in comparison to the 5,000 – 5,500 women that will have been trained to code by the end of 2018 by Code First: Girls.

It seems even bleaker considering that the social enterprise’s courses are often oversubscribed and receives twice as many applicants as places.

Greater Collaboration is the Solution

De Alwis said that these figures served to highlight the need for greater collaboration in this area to ensure that more people were encouraged into the technology sector: “We are working very closely with, for example, The Institute of Coding. We are very much working together to try and address this challenge because they acknowledge that these numbers just aren’t good enough.”

Common barriers that hold women back from accessing technology training are lack of funds, lack of previous education, socio-economic background or age. Enterprises like Code First: Girls hope to help women over these hurdles and the support it receives from its external partners is vital.

Code First: Girls has recently announced a partnership with telecoms and broadband provider BT to teach cohorts of 30 women the skills they need for a job in tech in a free four-month course.

The social enterprise is also supported by Trainline and Goldman Sachs to achieve its goal of teaching 20,000 young women to code by 2020. To date, the company has delivered £3.3 million of free coding education and taught 5,500 women for free across the UK.

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