I’ve spent fair while in the IT sector and through running Girl Geek Dinners and reviewing the issues sorrounding the industry I am seeing some consistent and constant patterns that are affecting our Science, Technology and Engineering industry sectors. Here’s what I’ve noticed.
The Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) sectors are all struggling to attract and retain staff. By this I’m not talking just about the women but also about the men as well. Unfortunately the roles within these sectors although varied appears to be seen as hard, geeky (which to some is good and others is bad), technical and thankless. The positives around these industry sectors are rarely given any public visibility and the passion of those doing these roles is hidden well within organizations and not easy to find in a public arena.
The issues that many assume to be female or women’s issues sorrounding the SET industries are in fact not completely gender related, the proof of this is in the fact that less students every year take on university courses related to the SET subjects. This is gender agnostic. Also looking at how many people leave these industries and move to other sectors shows the degree that the issue is affecting it.
When you talk to staff they say they are over worked, they are not invested in. in terms of courses and keeping skills up to date. In fact many have to take time off work (holiday time to train and attend conferences). This however is a symptom of the quantity of work there is available within this industry and if this increased then time would become more available.
Going on from here, trying to get into the SET subjects at university tends to require that you have A Level maths, whilst this sounds like it’s not a huge block it does have it’s issues. As many who know the UK education sector know, in order to take this course you have to have taken the higher GCSE Maths paper. Even if you get the highest grade that you can on the lower paper you will be discouraged from or just told you can’t take the higher paper. Now take into account that this is determined before you start your GCSE’s by teachers when you are 15… This means that not getting that grade at 15 years old can stop you at 18 from getting into your course of choice at university and stop you from following your chosen career path. Ironically this may not be clear until after you have chosen your A level options but will suddenly sneak up on you when you fill out your UCAS form. Good teachers will know this and try to guide you however most don’t tell you this when they put you into that lower maths paper or lower 2/3rds of the year in maths. To me this is one of the saddest things in the education sector. With so much of our industry relying on Technology I would hope that 2/3rds of students today are educated to pass that higher paper so that they can have the option to do those coursed or follow that career path.
The irony… I’ve rarely used the maths taught at Uni be that in mobile or embedded apps or even UI based content. I wonder if there’s something that can be done… either remove the requirement at Uni on this or enable more students to be trained in the higher papers with a stronger maths background.
Will this create more options? Will it change the industry and will it open the doors? Also what else needs to change to retain staff in these industries… does it really all stem from a lack of people in the industry or does it stem from a series of other internal company issues or industry trends?
What do you think?
