According to ScotlandIS, which represents over 1,000 companies in the Scottish digital technology sector, the tech industry is growing 1.5 times faster than any other industry in Scotland, meaning 1 in 10 job openings here are in tech.

However, in the midst of that, almost a quarter (23%) of Scottish tech businesses cite a lack of basic data skills and over a third (37%) report a lack of advanced digital skills among their existing workforces.

While there are many creative approaches to plug this skills-based gap, major changes can be made by organisations to resolve this issue by making their workplace more inclusive to neurodivergent workers.

For example, in Tech Talent Charter’s latest Diversity in UK Tech report, tech employers reported just 3% of their employees as neurodivergent, compared to the 53% of workers that self identified as neurodivergent in the same survey.

Neurodivergence is a mental or neurological difference from what is considered typical or normal. It is often used to describe people on the autism spectrum, however, the term covers much wider grounds. 

People on the autism spectrum are neurodivergent, but not all neurodivergent people are on the autism spectrum. It is an umbrella term which covers conditions such as Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

In fact, something as common as heightened anxiety could impair your risk assessment enough to diverge you from what is ‘normal’.

The modern conception of being neurotypical is built on capitalist, colonialist, religious, and white supremacist values, according to Holly Foxcroft, a cyber researcher and neurodiversity champion. 

“Society has placed on us how we need to act to be socially accepted. And this has been formed over thousands of years,” said Foxcroft, when speaking at DIGIT’s Scot-Secure Summit on 27 March. 

“How we act is how society says we should act, and that does start to fluctuate and change, but anything that is diverged is different.”

According to her, everyone will be neurodivergent at some point in their lives, whether it be from grief, manopause, dementia, or depression – there will come a time where we will diverge from society’s expected neurotypical standards.

Looking at the skills gap through the lens of inclusiveness towards neurodiversity, we can glean valuable information from how organisations have been working to make their workplaces more inclusive to workers on the autism spectrum – and how other companies can follow suit.

Neurodiversity in the Workplace

Over one in 100 people in the UK are on the autism spectrum. However, due to the condition sometimes going undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as something else, the number is thought to be even higher, with some estimates pointing to potentially 20% of the population thought to be neurodivergent.

Either way, what we’re presented with is a rather large group of individuals with a unique set of positive traits, abilities, and ways of looking at the world and work, which businesses in the tech sphere can utilise and benefit from – if they take the correct steps.  

Autistic workers, for instance, often have attributes that  make them well-placed and suitable for roles in tech in particular, such as honest and direct communication, attention to detail, finding patterns, and processing information in memory.

Neurodivergent employees also excel in problem solving skills, according to Emma Walker, regional director for Auticon Scotland, an organisation looking to address the inequalities and employment for neurodivergent adults and showcase the strengths of neurodiversity in society.

“If you had a team that all thought the same way, then you’re going to come up with a solution that’s vaguely the same. But if you bring a neurodivergent person into that team, they can come up with a completely novel solution, which has the potential to create a competitive advantage for companies,” she said. 

Despite this, it’s thought that only 16% of autistic adults are currently in full-time employment, although 77% said they want to work, according to numbers from Auticon. 

“​​There is a huge raft of talented autistic people who are unable to get into employment, because of all the barriers that are put there,” she says. 

What Employers Can Do 

“Right from when somebody advertises their job, the way some things are advertised or somebody’s website is written, it can put off a lot of neurodivergent people,” continued Walker. 

For example, job listings will usually post a number of attributes they are looking for in an ideal candidate. While a neurotypical person might look at that list, resonate with a small handful but apply anyways, an autistic candidate would take the list literally, and only apply to the job if they meet every criteria exactly.

“You can have the essential and the desirable attributes,” said Walker, talking about how companies should format job postings. “So as long as the essential ones are just the ones you actually need.”

After initial screening, neurodivergent people in general do not interview well, according to her, since they need more processing time than a neurotypical person. 

“If you’re firing ad hoc questions at them, they haven’t got that processing time, so they can’t give you a good response,” continued Walker. 

Once hired, neurodivergent people can face even more barriers to success, from the workplace’s physical environment to how the company goes about its current practices and policies. However, instilling and fostering a culture where neurodivergent folks feel comfortable in disclosing their condition(s), and can seek and receive the adjustments that improves their wellbeing and allows them to do their best work, is key for both their success and retention

As Walker said, “If they are not supported adequately, or given the adjustments that enable them to work effectively, then they may not even tell you, they might just resign and leave.”

“If somebody has a manager they feel is supportive, they can open up to them and say, ‘Hey, I have this neurodivergent condition, this is what I can do really well, these are the small areas you can help me with.” This enables them to work to the best of their ability, which is to benefit the organisation.”

“But why not make those adjustments for everybody?” asks Walker. 

Recommended reading

• Scottish Enterprise is Boosting Neurodiversity in Cybersecurity
• Auticon Enters Partnership to Empower Neurodivergent Adults
• RBS Partnership to Help Create Jobs for Autistic Adults in Edinburgh

This question reels the scope of this matter back to the fundamentals of inclusive design. How often do able-bodied people use lifts instead of stairs, or hearing people use subtitles for films? They do this because, once inclusive systems are in place, they subsequently benefit everyone. 

Likewise, in an office space, taking the extra step of asking – and adjusting for – any accommodations, and allowing everyone to reap the benefits of an inclusive workplace could have tangible benefits on everyone’s work performance. 

Foxcroft likened it to a clothing label providing care information: “A clothing label is a specific set of instructions that’s going to get the best out of that garment, and that’s the same as an individual.

“That means you’re going to get the best out of that person and we start to address this by accepting and supporting differences.”

According to the Scottish government, 80% of skills gaps were caused in part by at least one transient cause, which essentially means a reason with a short-term effect. 

This means that a large part of the skills gap can be blamed on, simply, staff not being able to work to their full potential. 

In a time where 83% of Scottish companies surveyed expected to increase their headcounts between 2023-24 according to the ScotlandIS Industry Survey, there must be a new approach to plug the skills gap. 

This should be a multifaceted approach, which above all, accepts and accommodates the workers, and values them for thinking differently and having diverse needs, instead of shaping them into a predefined idea of what they should be.