IT leads the way in promoting social mobility

The IT industry looks set to play a leading role in government efforts to encourage social mobility.

The government's newly-launched social mobility strategy emphasises the need for businesses to reform their intern programmes.

It has urged businesses to sign up to a so-called “Business Compact on Social Mobility”, which would commit them to ensure internships are available to all – not just friends and families of current staff.

“In Britain today, life chances are narrowed for too many by the circumstances of their birth: the home they’re born into, the neighbourhood they grow up in or the jobs their parents do,” said deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

The IT industry has led the way in promoting open access to internships, Karen Price, chief executive of e-Skills UK, the IT industry skills body, told Computing.

“The IT industry has a strong history of offering high quality, salaried placements to undergraduates as part of their degrees,” she said.

More than 600 students from 55 universities have already taken part in the industry-backed placement programme developed by e-Skills UK.

“Some 97 per cent of students who have completed an e-Skills Internship feel that they benefited from their placement experience and feel in a stronger position to get a job,” said Price.