Improving technology sector access and diversity
Supported the expansion plans of a digital skills education charity focused on widening access to tech careers for low income, female and ethnic minority young people.
Expansion to a new 6th form facility formed a key part of the charity’s ambitious growth plans. We worked with management to identify the most promising schools to target in the new catchment area. Through desk research and internal interviews, we helped management develop a strategically considered and tiered outreach plan that fed into a broader outreach strategy for the organisation.
Context
With a mission to widen access to tech careers for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, this organisation provides apprenticeships and 6th form education focused on advanced digital skills.
Its ambitious plans for growth included a new 6th form facility. Planning for this new site demanded careful consideration of how to recruit new and diverse local students. We were asked to provide targeted analysis to help identify where and how to target the highest priority recruits.
Approach
Our analysis used public and internal data and school suitability criteria agreed with senior management to develop a long list of the most promising schools in key locations.
Whittling this long list down to a prioritised short list fulfilled the brief of identifying where to target highest priority students. Strategic evaluation of the short list and the underpinning analysis led to further insights: a tiered approach to schools that balanced building new school relationships with retaining existing ones was key; as was a particular focus on the challenge of gender diversity.
Impact
The project’s success lay in the transfer of skills and analytical approaches to the client team as well as in their adoption of the new tiered outreach plan.
Using their new target list and outreach strategy, the charity met their recruitment targets for the next academic year. And the team use our suggested analytical tools to support ongoing efforts to optimize their recruitment plans and improve gender diversity.