International Women's Day Interview

At Bright Network Technology Academy, raising the profile of women in technology is at the forefront of everything we do. From flagship events like Women in TEC that, allow our members to understand their full potential, to supporting diverse and highly talented women to pursue a career in technology through our award-winning bootcamp.  

Through this work, we are always seeing the impact of shared stories and experiences. How we all have the power to inspire the next generation to follow their dreams, and the importance of ensuring every single individual can truly see what they have the potential to be. The need for this, could not be more apparent in the technology sector, as the percentage of women in technology has remained at around 19% for the last 20 years.   

That’s why we’re being joined this International Women’s Day by Rachel Carvell-Spedding, Managing Director at Bright Network Technology Academy, who has been speaking with to us about her career, why she feels she missed out on getting into tech, and how the sector needs to change to encourage more women to take the leap into technology.  

Before this interview, you did the Bright Network Career Pathway test, and one of the top career suggestions was technology. Did you ever consider a career in tech? 

Did I ever consider a career in technology...I studied more art-based subjects at A level, then history at university, but I never thought about a career in technology. It was obviously a number of years ago when I graduated and I was still very much of a generation, which actually, I think still exists today in terms of a divide, where you were either science focused or not.  

What's become more apparent over the years is my love for innovation, for logic, for getting things done and for using data and technology to create better things.  

It's only now with this hindsight, you join the dots and think, actually, if I'd been given a bit of a bridge into technology and a greater understanding, it could have shaped my career choices somewhat differently. But the assumption was, despite really loving Maths at GCSE level and doing quite well in it, that the door was closed to tech because I chose to pursue a different route. That happens to too many people, and that's what we need to change.  

Hopefully, we're doing a little bit of that at Bright Network. 

So, ultimately you think if you'd been given the guidance to help join the dots when you were studying that you would have pursued a career in tech? 

Definitely. When I look at the Bright Network Technology Academy consultants that we're working with, and the types of things they're doing in businesses, whether it's helping to build an app that's going to change the lives of 20 million people or problem solving to create solutions for climate change, they’re big macro ideas to jump into.  

The problems we want to solve in the world really excite me, and since I was younger, I’ve always wanted to work on those things. The reality is, technology would have been the vehicle to do that, I just hadn’t been given the guidance or information to understand that was a potential route. 

This journey isn't a surprising one. When we look at the numbers in technology, we can see that just 16% of girls in school are studying any form computer science, which then translates to 20% at university and 19% in the workforce. Looking at these numbers, where do you think more needs to be done? 

More needs to be done at every level.  

You could apply this, in general, for careers advice. It's too much assume that if you haven't gone down a certain route at the age of 16 17, 18, gosh, even up to 24, that you're excluded from a particular sector, or walk of life.  

That couldn't be further from the truth, yet we have that in place. Whether it's technology, medicine or law, if you don't start early enough, it's not open to you.  

In the technology sector in particular, that is hugely damaging, because technology and how technology is being applied is evolving all the time. That evolution is something you can get involved in regardless of age or stage of your career. So, we have to get over that barrier ourselves before we can truly communicate that tech is for everyone.  

I also think that there's a huge amount that could be done for those that are working in the world of technology or using technology, to talk more openly about why technology is the future. Not in a convoluted, technical way, but from that macro perspective, to really open it up and show that it’s a career route for all.  

We still have these stumbling blocks over what technology is. The interesting thing is, technology is not just a sector in its own right. Technology is everywhere and it's within every sector. So, any sector and any job you go into now will utilise technology in some form. 

You've been part of our network for nearly a decade. Why do you think Bright Network’s increased focus on women in technology is so important right now? 

I started working with Bright Network 9/10 years ago and even back then we were talking about the lack of women in technology. We started on a very small level, to start seeing what we could do on an early careers talent level. Running events, which we still do to this day, and trying to reach as many people as possible.  

Now, with Bright Network Technology Academy, we're really able to increase the depth of the support we can offer, encouraging women into tech and providing a framework over a two-year period to actually get people involved in technology. To train them up and be that bridge into a career in technology, if you haven't considered one or haven't studied the traditional STEM degree.  

It's a hugely exciting career route. It's a career for pioneers. A career, for those that want to do great things, those that want to be challenged, those that want to be paid well and those that want great work life balance. 

But there’s a cold hard reality here if we look at the percentages of women in the tech workforce. Despite there being a focus on increasing female senior leaders in some areas of tech, and hope of a ‘trickle down effect’, nothing is really changing. The percentage of women in tech has flatlined for nearly two decades. So, we need to act now more than ever. And, by increasing our focus on it, we hope to raise the profile of this issue in the tech workforce as well.  

What do you think the knock-on effect of this increased focus will be? And how important is it for young women to be able to see examples of other females in technology? 

You need to see people like you in technology thriving to know that it could be a really good career route. 

The challenge is you need to see them at every stage, so yes, there are leaders, but actually what’s more helpful is when you see somebody who's two years into their career, five years into their career, 10 years into their career.  

That's where you start seeing the steps that people have taken.  

It's also really helpful to understand where people have made career changes, why they've done it, and what they've got from it. That's where the work we do and events we run, like Women in TEC, at Bright Network is so important. It allows our members to hear from real people doing real things, who aren't necessarily on the front of a magazine or X entrepreneur that's just sold their business for X amount. It takes it to a level where people think ‘Oh, yes, I could do that in my career’.  

I also think there needs to be less focus with careers about what you want to be and more about what you do on a daily basis. The finance industry had this years ago, where there's sort of an opaqueness around it and it’s the same with technology now. It's like ‘on a day-to-day basis, what am I doing?’ When that gets broken down, people say ‘Wow, that's really fascinating. I didn't know it was that’.  

Definitely. And once you combine that with showing people that they can get into tech at any point in their career, you really start to speak to the growing conversation we're seeing around squiggly careers - you don't have to have one path or one route, and you can change at any point if you truly want to.  

Final question, what would you say to any young woman who doesn't think there's space for them in tech? 

There is absolutely a space for motivated, bright, hungry women in any career path that they wish to choose.  

Over 50% of the consultants that we've trained through our bootcamps at Technology Academy are women. And they are currently doing remarkable things at leading organizations from M&S to Lloyds Banking Group.  

Amazingly, what we're already seeing is how these young women who have gone in are beginning to change cultures. It shows that with the right support, women can thrive in technology, and we are seeing that through Technology Academy. We've got the evidence to show that if you train people in the right way, give them that support, give them the right leg up to start their career, that actually sets them on a path that allows them to thrive. 

Thanks for joining us, Rachel. It’s been fantastic to hear more about your journey, and what you think we need to do to inspire more women to take the leap into technology.