Banks work toward gender parity with Code First Girls

Starling Bank and Lloyds Banking Group are the latest financial institutions to sign up to UK female tech talent initiative Code First Girls. They join 26 other financial institutions, including BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, NatWest and Bank of America, in actively seeking female tech talent through their partnerships with the female-focused initiative. The organisation purports to be the UK’s largest UK provider of free coding courses for women.

A total of half UK banks are now participating in the initiative, according to Code First Girls. Since 2019, it has secured more than 100 new clients, including five government departments. According to the female-founded business, it is seeing an increasing number of women looking beyond roles offered by big tech firms, with organisations across all sectors needing tech talent, and with banks and finance companies leading the way.

One of the two new participants, Starling Bank, has been following the work of Code First Girls for since its formation and many of the bank’s team work voluntarily with them, according to Becci Freeman, Starling’s senior people partner. The bank this year attended Code Fest, a two-day event run by Code First Girls to connect its members and coders with companies. “This really resonated with CFG’s values, their energy and the way they go about things,” says Ms Freeman.

“We’re committed to getting more women working in banking to make financial services a more gender-balanced industry,” she says. “In 2017, we signed up to the Women in Finance Charter. At the time there were 27% of women in senior roles, today there are 43%. We have met and surpassed our target of 40% of women in senior positions. Partnering with Code First Girls is a natural next step for us.”

Ms Freeman stresses: “It’s incredibly important to us that we are creating opportunities across the bank and technology for all, but it’s even more important that we ensure people have the support they need and deserve when they start working here. So, while we knew what we wanted to do, we took extra care internally to ensure when the graduates land, they are best placed for success,” she says.

Boosting diversity

Commenting on joining the initiative, in a statement Sharon Doherty, chief people and places officer at Lloyds Banking Group, said: "We need diversity of all kinds across our team, so that we can fully represent the many different customers and communities we serve.”

Lloyds Banking Group is committed to employing 50% of women in senior roles by 2025, she added. “We’ve made great progress – but there’s still more we can do.  Our aspiration becomes more challenging in some of our more technical areas, where the industry is still not attracting female talent into the pipeline in the same way that we are able to attract male talent.

“Partnerships with companies like Code First Girls are incredibly important to help the industry to encourage and support females into tech careers, so that we can ensure our technologists fully represent our incredible customers.”   

ONS data analysis is from the Annual Population Survey via Nomis. As of June 2022, there are 203,800 male brokers, financial analysts and advisers in the UK versus 95,700 female brokers, financial analysts and advisers (30%). There are 512,900 male programmers and software development professionals, web design professionals, and data analysts. By comparison, there are only 113,900 women doing these jobs (18.17%).

Starling Bank is planning to bring in four new technologists to its team next summer and then to decide how to proceed, says Ms Freeman. “We’re very committed to creating more opportunities for all and partnering with the best who share our values.” The bank will be sponsoring classes and degree places through Code First Girls, contributing to future events and, outside of the structured programme, and encouraging people to use their Starling volunteering hours to get involved in mentoring too, she adds. 

And explaining the benefits of the initiative to the bank, she says: “Diversity is at the heart of Starling. We believe that regardless of who you are, it’s your knowledge, skills and experience that matter. We want to provide more entry points into technology for all people of all genders and to continue to provide an inclusive and equitable place of work for all. We hope to expand our own network and provide opportunities for women and non-binary people to grow in this space, and we hope to learn from the people we meet too.”   

Untapped resource

Five years ago, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report reported female talent in finance still remains one of the most untapped business resources. This gap is now actively being addressed by initiatives such as Code First Girls.

Recent research by the UK’s Quantic MBA programme shows that despite finance being still thought of as a male-dominated sector, the number of women is rising and opportunities for advancement are increasing. The academic institution also says the number of women seeking higher business degrees rose during the Covid-19 pandemic by 40% in 2020 over the previous year.

Code First Girls itself was boosted by a recent survey that it conducted of more than 1200 women, which showed that Goldman Sachs, NatWest and Barclays feature in the top 10 companies for which female coders most want to work, although they still lag in popularity behind dominant tech companies Google, Spotify, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.

According to a recent Deloitte report on gender equity in financial services, the number of women in C-suite roles in the US is expected to rise by 7% by 2030. Supporting this trend, this month Pennsylvania-based CNB Bank announced plans to open a new unit next year focused on providing financial services to women business owners and leaders. Called Impressia Bank, it will provide traditional business banking services but will also offer advice and resources to support female entrepreneurs to grow and develop their businesses, CNB Bank said in a statement.

Initially UK-based, Code First Girls reports that it is now seeing growth internationally, offering classes and degree opportunities across 12 international markets including the US, Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Hungary this year. “We have secured tech employment opportunities for women in the finance sector in Poland with Goldman Sachs, Hungary with Morgan Stanley and Switzerland with Credit Suisse,” says the spokesperson.

The Code First Code model, which offers ratios of coding education to job opportunities, is “free, virtual and accessible”, claims the spokesperson. “Our learners can fit their studies flexibly around their lives whilst landing their dream job – removing barriers for those in full-time education, work, or with caring responsibilities to transition into tech. In subscribing to Code First Girls, companies can employ the very best technical talent whilst committing to readdressing the gender imbalance of the entire ecosystem.” 

According to Code First Girls, without initiatives such as theirs and a continued dependence on higher education alone, there would only be one qualified woman for every 115 roles in technology by 2025. “Companies in both the tech and finance sectors are facing a colossal skills and gender gap. There is a very long way to go, but by taking steps to close that gap, banks and financial institutions can ultimately benefit from more diverse teams.”

An increased proportion of female coders will benefit bank customers, according to the spokesperson. “More diverse workforces mean diversity of thought, which leads to better products and services.”