The UK government has announced measures to boost female participation in the technology industry.

Women remain underrepresented in tech. The government said the cost is significant, with the economy losing an estimated £2 to £3.5 billion every year as women leave the sector.

The measures include paid work placements, support for those returning after career breaks to re-enter tech jobs, and a competition aimed at getting more girls to consider a career in technology earlier in their lives.

The government has invested £4 million in the TechFirst Women’s Programme, which will help 300 women advance their careers through paid work placements in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The programme will provide women with coaching and interview preparation support and will work with SMEs across the country to identify at least 300 placements in tech roles for local women.

Alongside this programme, the government has launched a returnships pilot to support skilled software developers to re-enter the workforce in senior tech roles in government after time away.

The returnship scheme will be piloted with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice and will be open to software developers who have been out of work for 18 months or more.

The government said the scheme will help address the “CV gap” barrier many returners face when trying to get back to work, which can happen when women put their careers on hold for their families.

It added that women leaving tech has real consequences for the technology being built, with inherent biases developed by an unrepresentative workforce, unfairly impacting women.

Research from UCL has found that AI tools used in recruitment favour male names nearly five times more than female names, and AI models built to predict liver disease were twice as likely to miss the disease in women.

A TechFirst Girls Competition will also launch later this year, which will see girls aged 12–13 using AI to think creatively and solve problems.

Held in partnership with IBM, the government said the competition will provide girls with insight into what a tech career might look like.

“Women aren’t being given a fair shot in tech – whether that’s getting into the sector, staying in it, or returning after time away bringing up their families,” said secretary of state Liz Kendall. “If we don’t address these issues now, we’ll still be having this conversation in decades’ time and that isn’t good enough.”

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