Microsoft hopes digital bootcamps will draw more women to tech

The vendor and eight UK partners will be running free data science workshops for women on 2 May

Microsoft is running data science bootcamps across the UK in a bid to make the tech industry more accessible to women.

The free courses will be run on 2 May by the tech giant and eight of its partners in London, Manchester, Scotland and Wales to address the low numbers of women in tech roles.

The vendor made the announcement as part of its International Women's Day celebrations.

The Microsoft Professional Programme in Data Science is a 10-part course teaching the basics of the subject, of which the first will be run during the bootcamps.

The other nine courses must be paid for, but participants will then be able to apply for certificates that can be used to further their careers.

"Microsoft has a strong mission to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more," said Cindy Rose, Chief exec of Microsoft UK.

"That puts diversity and inclusion at the heart of what we do and who we are.

"For International Women's Day, we are reaching out to women across the UK who want to empower themselves by acquiring new digital skills but may be unsure where to begin.

"The women who will change the world tomorrow must start learning digital skills today.

"We want more women from a range of diverse backgrounds and abilities to be inspired by a potential career in technology that requires an understanding that it's not only open to them but can help them achieve their goals, whatever they may be."

The eight partners running the courses across the UK are: Kainos, BJSS, Amido, ANS, DevOpsGroup, DSP, Grey Matter and Incremental.

Data scientists are in huge demand by organisations across all industries for their skills in filtering and analysing large amounts of data.

A 2016 report by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills predicted that 518,000 skilled workers will be needed to fill digital roles by 2022.

That figure that is three times the number of computer science degree-holders produced by the UK in the last decade - only five per cent of whom have been women.

Leeds-based BJSS will be running the bootcamps in Nottingham and London, led by female members of its data science team.

Henry Brown, BJSS' head of data and analytics, said: "We are delighted to be working with Microsoft to run these bootcamps.

"Diversity is something we are passionate about, and it's important for our business that we have a range of views, skills and talents from different backgrounds in our workforce.

"We have many talented female data scientists at BJSS and we want to show women that this is a viable and fulfilling career option for them."

Kathryn Gilchrist, recruitment manager at Kainos, said the firm was thrilled to be working on the project to entice women on career breaks or considering an industry move to the tech sector.

" We want to bring women from a range of backgrounds together and give them an insight into data science and engineering, which suffer from a shortage of female employees," she said.

"We need to move the dial on getting more women into the tech sector, and that starts with having a passion for learning and trying something new."

As part of its other events marking International Women's Day, Microsoft is encouraging its employees to run digital skills workshops in schools, as well as working with the Department for Work and Pensions to educate Job Centre staff about Linked In skills.