The Tech Talent Skills gap is high on the agenda for the Northern Powerhouse (SOTN16 conference) and the Scale up institute (review 2016).

The fight for quality developers continues with the Tech sector growing 3 x faster than the rest of the UK economy with it being reported that there are over 50,000 software jobs across the North of England to be filled!

With companies shifting their focus from recruiting purely based on technical skill set to areas such as “candidate fit”, “demonstrating the right behaviours” and “business awareness”, they need solutions and support in fulfilling these requirements. Also with these changes individuals who are looking at entering a tech based career need more support to become “industry ready” and have all the skills that businesses need.

The ScaleUp review 2016 reported 82% of scale ups would grow faster if university graduates had the right skills needed. But what are the skill gaps? The report - stated the largest skill gap was business skill 34%, followed by 30% management skills then followed with technical at 29% and 28% social skills.

The drive to recruit exceptional tech talent has been a key focus for me over the past five years recruiting developers that can demonstrate passion, drive, values and behaviours for the business growth and scale that the tech industry is seeing.

My frustrations still remain with the education system and the lack of agile content and industry skills needed to fulfil the requirements of the Northern Powerhouse.

So in 2017 I am delighted to partner with Northcoders to make a change and work towards reducing the tech talent skills gap over the North.

But both Northcoders and I wanted to do more to be proactive in putting solutions to these challenges in place so…

We will be launching a bespoke coaching / mentoring program, focusing on key individual development areas.

I will be spending time with each student to map out what success means to them and how we can support them to achieve this with clear development goals.

A main goal of the program is to attract more women to the course and subsequently more women into the tech industry which is a personal passion of mine over the past 5 years! I believe, based on the research I have done through the WIT North group (Co-Founder) and mentoring WIT in the North West, this approach will break down those barriers by providing personal development for the student and educating companies in having a diverse workforce, all of which is a personal success factor for me and supports my 2017 #shecandoboth campaign.

I will also spend time understanding the needs of our Northern tech businesses by partnering with them to understand skill requirements and how to maximise team effectiveness through growth and scale.

Rebecca Taylor, Clos Consultancy