So far, 41 organisations have hired (40% fewer than last year, which in turn was 40% fewer than 2022), with the average number of hires per organisation down from 2.8 last year to 2.5 this year.
Gender diversity is 41% non-male, which is still well above the industry representation of 25% women, but significantly below last year’s 51% non-male hired through Summer of Tech.
We are worried about the lower numbers of educational pathways: although candidates from 36 institutions participated in Summer of Tech, only 14 institutions with successful placements this year. It’s usually 25+!
Only 10% of our placements are 1st year students (so far) this year (compared to 18% in 2023) with an increase in the proportion of 3rd years (34% this year compared to 25% in 2023) and graduates moving up slightly from 18% to 21%.
This lack of diversity in interns and grads hired, with majority male, nearing the end or completed their qualification, and majority from a small number of institutions, indicates a conservative or low-risk hiring strategy by many of those hiring new tech talent this year.
This is in NO WAY a criticism, and in no way true for every company. We have so many employers who are hiring strategically and making a huge effort to diversify our tech sector. We just wanted to highlight the trends this year’s first 100 placements, compared to last year.
On a positive note… wages have increased ever so slightly, up 18c/hr compared to last year. We attribute this to the Living Wage increase, which both ourselves and Callaghan Innovation have set as the benchmark for intern wages.
