100,000 opportunities created for women as London business hits “major milestone”

Code First Girls, a female-founded, London based business that supports women into coding education and employment for free, announced that it has reached the “major milestone” of having taught 100,000 women to code.

Code First Girls’ impact does not stop with education as it works with over 100 partners in the UK and globally, including household names like Rolls-Royce, GCHQ, Nike, and NatWest, to actively place women into tech roles.

Code First Girls has placed thousands of people into the tech industry, and these companies are seeing the impact of employing a more diverse tech workforce. The benefits of actively recruiting women from non-technical backgrounds include creative problem solving for security threats, to performance improvements and innovation across all sectors.

In 2022, Code First Girls has provided taught 44,861 opportunities for women to learn how to code, compared to 6,450 women who embarked upon undergraduate computing degrees in the UK in 2022. The company is accelerating fast and has entered international markets, including the USA, France, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands and Hungary.

Code First Girls is aiming to provide one million opportunities to women, and alongside free online courses at every stage of the pipeline, the business plans to put over 26,000 women through the ‘CFGdegree’ and place them into tech roles over the next five years.

With the industry boasting higher than average starting salaries, this equates to over £1bn in economic opportunities for women entering the tech workforce.

The announcement follows Code First Girls’ £4.5m Series A fundraise, with investment from prolific female angels and lead investor Active Partners.This helped turbocharge the company’s growth, setting Code First Girls on a path to become the world’s first EdTech unicorn dedicated to women.

Anna Brailsford, CEO at Code First Girls, commented: “With women making up just a fifth of the tech industry, it’s clear the traditional model of coding education is failing to support women and people from more diverse backgrounds into tech.

“Code First Girls is helping to rectify this by partnering with businesses, government and universities to provide employment through free education.

“We’re thrilled to announce we’ve now taught 100,000 women to code. With more than half of those women coming from underrepresented ethnicities and around a fifth identifying as neurodiverse, our pioneering model is helping to boost diversity in tech.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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