How AI reaches the missing percentages in tech
Closing the representation gap between the UK population and tech workers
Amidst rising concern about AI and the threat it could pose to workers, Durham University and FDM Group present a positive in its application.
Using AI to filter through interviews, we have been able to uncover the common barriers and experiences of underrepresented groups in the tech sector. In turn, this helps move the UK's tech sector forward to a more diverse, inclusive, and productive future.
The need to close the digital skills gap
Today's technology industry is challenged by an increasing digital skills gap that threatens the success of organisations.
A recent Microsoft study revealed that 82% of UK jobs already require digital skills, and 69% of leaders feel their organisation suffers from a digital skills gap.
Estimates also suggest that the digital skills gap costs the UK economy as much as £63 billion a year in potential GDP, highlighting how essential it is for the right employees to be sourced as well as properly trained and supported throughout their careers.
The missing percentages
In 2019, it was estimated that while 14% of the UK's workforce was made up of people of BAME backgrounds, only 4% worked in tech. Similarly, while women made up 50% of the UK population, they were only 16% of the tech workforce.
To bridge this gap between 14% and 4%, and 50% and 16%, organisations must listen to the experience of those in underrepresented groups about what it's like working in tech, what their interview process was like, and what they wish had been different.
The gap is key in demonstrating a huge problem in the UK's tech sector. Durham University and FDM Group's AI-based study found that adapting the recruitment and advertising components of hiring new candidates could better promote inclusivity, reaching out to the missing percentages, and close the digital skills gap.
How AI can reach underrepresented groups in tech
Recent research by Durham University and FDM Group used AI to scan video interviews of workers from underrepresented groups in the UK and the USA, and captured over 10 million words spoken. The goal has been to use AI to draw out patterns or trends in what these tech workers have been saying to better adapt business practices to be more inclusive.
This application of AI to scan old interview footage is a great way to listen to those who are problematically not present. This valuable data is collected through asking direct questions in the interview and also by noting what interviewees say about their experience.
Additionally, AI can help collect statistics on demographic information of candidates to determine if some groups are disproportionately under or over-represented. AI's use of language analysis tools can also help organisations better understand the various nuances to someone's experience.
In these ways, AI can be used to dive deeper into the digital skills gap and why so many people are missing from the tech sector. Acknowledging the need to listen to those underrepresented, and using AI to do so, can in turn help organisations transform their recruitment and advertising practices to build a more inclusive future.
We'll be addressing tech's diversity challenge - and some solutions to the same - at two upcoming events this year. Later this month we'll be running the Women in Tech Festival, with a packed agenda looking at how to create networks; quotas; and going beyond gender diversity. In November we'll run the half-day Build Better event with HSBC, examining recruitment & retention; creating roles for women; and diversity success stories.
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