AWS UK&I boss on recruiting more women into tech: 'We have to tip the balance and be more exciting'

Gavin Jackson says making a return to work appealing for mothers is key to addressing the skills gap

The digital skills gap will be plugged only by recruiting people of all walks of life into the channel and making it an alluring prospect for mothers considering a return to work, according to AWS' UK boss Gavin Jackson.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is in the process of fine-tuning its Returners programme which is aimed at individuals considering a return to work, Jackson said, with women returning to work after giving birth making up a large number of the applicants.

"We set up the Returners programme because we realised that there are not enough women in technology," he explained.

"We are starting the trial on ourselves, to train and educate returning mothers to come back into the workplace and work for Amazon.

"If we can get that programme well oiled and get it ready to go then we can export it and make it another cohort in the future."

Speaking to CRN at the AWS Transformation Day event, Jackson noted that the skills shortage will not be solved if efforts aren't made to diversify the types of people in digital roles.

"The balance is still heavily weighted towards men, and if we sustain the current levels of balance then we are not going to solve the problem of the skills shortage in technology, so we have to tip the balance and be more exciting," he said.

AWS has also established its Get IT programme to get more girls interested in IT at a young age.

The UK MD admitted that it has been a challenge getting college-age girls interested in technical roles.

"You don't need to be a coder or DevOps engineer in order to contribute to the digital economy," Jackson said.

"At the moment, there has been a challenge in convincing college-level girls, in particular, to take the courses and training to take the path that would lead them to technology.

"We have to realise that this digital boom isn't just about technical roles - there are lots of creative roles and lots of data analytics roles."