Bridging the Skills Gap with No Code
As the digital economy emerges from the pandemic, innovation and digitalisation across all sectors is on the steepest trajectory to date and the race is on for the digital skills pipeline of talent to meet the current demand. In our most recent event, teamed up with the British Business Bank and invited an expert panel to discuss their views and experiences on the current digital skills gap.
We were introduced to the event by our Co-founder Zandra Moore.
“We’re going to hear some amazing stories from people who have broken into this rapidly growing part of the economy to build thriving businesses.”
Who was closely followed by our second Co-founder Georgia Halston.
“The digital skills gap is our number one priority to focus on and diversity and inclusion is the second. So, I’m extremely excited to hear what our guest speakers have to say today.”
Melanie Ellyard, Senior Manager, Yorkshire Humber and Tees Valley, The British Business Bank kicked off the discussion with a focus on the situation surround business start-up loans, who they are going to and what skill sets the loans are being invested in.
“Who are these people? What are they doing? What are their skills? It’s really interesting to see who the start-up loan funding is going to. It’s much more diverse than you may think, with 45% of loans going to women and 55% to men.”
“I think sometimes the importance comes from funding, but it mostly comes from community. That’s the biggest thing founders need, they need people to be asking them the right questions and supporting.”
Leading on from this point, Frances Odera Matthews, Notion Consultant at The Notion Bar spoke to us about what she feels would have been beneficial to her when starting up her business. She explained that she feels as though community is extremely important and one of the most valuable assets an organisation could provide new businesses with, is a community of others in the same boat or those slightly further ahead in their journey to offer advice.
Frances then drew a large amount of insight based on her own personal story in building a business. Frances spoke about the variation of clients she comes across when working within no code. She furthered her conversation on expanding on her want to develop her personal brand to build greater diversity within the industry.
“It became clear to me that it was really important to develop my personal brand and put myself out there. Because I could see the lack of diversity in the digital space. It’s really inspiring to me to see that community continuously growing now.”
Jenn Calland heavily supported the notion that community was of great importance, drawing from her experience in being involved within TechUpWomen and the community that has followed on from that support. She went on speak about how important it is to educate businesses on the range no code has, that they don’t need to hire a top-level analysts to solve these issues if they go down the route of no code.
“Just having 99 other cheerleaders behind me from that group of women has been extremely helpful in even just keeping me sane.”
“Often, as an individual, you feel isolated. You feel like the only woman or person of colour looking to get into the market. Our group has really helped bring people together and create this community that still support each other.”
Johanna Waite from Durham University with TechUpWomen spoke about the university’s role in developing women such as Jenn within their tech-based programs. She explained how the huge amount of tech training courses available only worsens the digital skills gap as those looking to break into the industry feel over faced. She again supported the earlier discussion on the value of community.
Our entire panel felt in support of the need to be targeting potential new starters within the industry to ensure they feel as though they can be involved. Frances explained the need for organisations to employ members of their target audience and that they really will be the most successful when it comes to outreaching to communities.
“I don’t like to refer to people are underrepresented, I prefer underexposed. There are organisations out there doing a good job. But if you are a traditional organisation looking to do these outreach programs, you first need to hire people from within those community to lead those programs.”
“In regard to resources for entrepreneurs, something as simple as a no code tool catalogue or a directory would be perfect. Some people may be looking to build something for their business, and they don’t know the solution exists. A catalogue could solve this.”
There was a strong feeling that listening to the correct communities and discovering what they are struggling with will be the key to shaping the landscape in the future, including within the education sector which was supported by Johanna’s talk on how Durham University is consistently reshaping their tech courses. It was felt that bridging the skills gap will only be possible if organisations recognise the disadvantages of some communities and look to offer the help required to break down these barriers.
Johanna identified a large issue for entrepreneurs within the digital sector is a lack of resource knowledge. Similarly, to the overly large base of tech learning courses, tech resources can also feel often overwhelming, and this is something organisations should be looking to bridge.
This event provoked some amazing conversation on the digital skills gap. Our main takeaways from the event have been:
The importance of communities
Industries don’t know what they don’t know
Different communities need different messages
Tech careers are for all, and this must be communicated
Not everything needs to be coded from scratch
No code is everywhere. Already.
“My main takeaway is probably Johanna’s reminder that we are actually using more no code solutions than we realise, and I think that informing people of this will really push the industry forward.”