The UK tech industry has a diversity problem — if we don’t close the gap we will fall behind

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt through lockdown, it’s that we all need more tech skills. “You’re on mute,” will most certainly go down as the phrase of 2020. Salespeople have learned to sell remotely, pub owners have learned how to provide services online, independent retailers have built e-commerce websites and managers have learned to engage their remote teams virtually.

This shift has forced many of us to rethink the skills we have and the ones we need to embrace the future workplace. At the height of the pandemic in the UK, 9.4 million people had been furloughed, with many being made redundant. Those people will be asking, what do I need to futureproof my career?

Well, if we consider looking at the specialist talents that businesses were on the hunt for in the run-up to the pandemic, the answer might be that they should learn about data proficiency, AI and machine-learning skills, and digital marketing. There is a rapidly shifting wave of digital specialisms that will shape the workplace to come.

Organisations are doing their best to help support workers learning these skills, yet the UK is dragging behind the curve. In a recent report by Microsoft, only around half of UK employees are using AI to work faster and smarter, compared with 69 per cent of employees globally. The demand for AI and deep learning to solve complex data-rich business problems and predict customer behaviours is growing, but only 32 per cent of UK employees feel their workplace is doing enough to prepare them.

A lack of investment in these skills will hamper productivity and could leave UK businesses struggling to compete with rivals around the world, especially with the possibility of an exodus of skilled workers when the UK leaves the EU.

There’s also a diversity gap in the tech industry; women and minorities are under-represented. Just five per cent of leadership positions in the UK technology sector are women and only four per cent of the UK tech workforce is black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME). Many companies in the tech sector still aren’t making diversity a business priority. Recruitment of diverse talent is improving, but quick hires become hard to retain as there is little room for progression.

As I think of the cutting-edge tech that is starting to shape our lives such as AI and voice recognition, they’re often built without enough consideration for the customers they serve. We’ve seen examples, such as digital soap dispensers that don’t recognise dark skin or Apple’s HealthKit app that didn’t acknowledge women’s menstrual cycles on its first release.

We need more encouragement for those from minority ethnic backgrounds to step into technology roles and drive better representation.

That will, in turn, lead to more diverse teams, more inclusive innovation, better products and customer experiences that drive loyalty and profitability. The end result: better bottom lines.

In McKinsey’s Diversity Matters report, they found that companies with high levels of ethnic and cultural diversity were 33 per cent more likely to outperform their competitors.

On an economic level, too, businesses and governments need to start preparing their workforce for the jobs of the future. As we enter the stabilisation and recovery phases of the crisis, the labour market needs to become more agile and resilient to future disruption. And that means learning more tech skills.