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How Serco is using apprenticeships to widen access to tech roles for women
The tech sector's gender problem is well documented. Women make up less than a quarter of the UK's tech workforce, and the pipeline isn't improving fast enough. Yet across industries, women are contributing to digital and data-driven work every day.
The work involves technical skills. It just isn’t always recognised or labelled as “tech”. That disparity limits career growth – many women doing technical work simply don't see themselves as credible candidates for technical roles.
At Serco, women across corporate services, operational teams, and programme management were working with data every day. What didn’t yet exist was a structured pathway to translate that experience into recognised technical careers.
As Nikki Williams, Head of Programme Operations and a board member of Serco's Women in Tech network, explains:
“It’s shocking the number of technical roles that we advertise and we don’t get a single female applicant. Women don’t feel that they are empowered even to apply.”
This wasn’t about formal barriers. It was about confidence, visibility and how technical capability is perceived. When the work you do isn't recognised as "tech," applying for technical roles feels like a leap rather than a natural next step.
Serco’s response was to design a clearer pathway. Innovate – a women-only Level 3 Data & Business Insights apprenticeship – was created to formalise progression into data and digital roles and support long-term career growth.
The level of interest underscored the demand for such a programme:
When Serco set aside 14 places for its first cohort, 200 colleagues attended information sessions.
As Karl Reed, Head of Apprenticeships at Serco, reflects:
“We knew there was an appetite for something like this. There’s always a degree of uncertainty when you launch something new, but the response confirmed we were addressing a real need.”
Delivered in partnership with Baltic Apprenticeships, the 12–15 month programme combines formal technical training with protected off-the-job learning time, cohort-based delivery and mapped progression pathways into Level 4, Level 5 and emerging specialisms such as AI.
Participants apply their learning directly within their roles, turning day-to-day data exposure into recognised technical capability. The apprenticeship structure provides both a nationally recognised qualification and practical experience, ensuring that progression is visible, measurable and embedded in real work.
For participants, this means sustained development rather than short-term exposure. For Serco, it maximises internal knowledge, experience and learning, while creating a clearer pipeline into technical roles.
The closed cohort model – 14 women learning together across different business units – was central to supporting retention and growth. It creates a network where participants can share experiences and support each other, rather than navigating technical career progression alone. And because the programme was opened to women across the business, participants can see how the same analytical thinking applies in very different operational contexts.
This reflects where Serco is heading: data-driven decision-making is becoming standard across sectors – from justice and defence to health, transport and corporate services – not confined to specialist teams. Innovate slots into that wider initiative, while also challenging assumptions about who "belongs" in data work, and creating clear pathways for people who might not have seen technical roles as accessible before.
For employers across industries, the lesson is clear: the gender imbalance in tech won't shift through hiring campaigns alone. It shifts when capable people already in the workforce can see a route forward – and are supported to take it.
Most organisations already have the talent. What's often missing is the pathway.
Author Biography:
Philip Buckingham is a Content Marketing Executive at Baltic Apprenticeships, where he works with employers to explore how structured learning pathways can support digital capability, progression and inclusion. His writing focuses on translating employer-led initiatives into practical insights on workforce development across sectors including public services, technology and professional services.'
About the campaign
techUK’s March TechTogether campaign continues with a focus on ‘empowering women in tech from classroom to c-suite'. Following International Women's Day our insights this week focus on female retention and growth in tech workplaces, spotlighting successful female tech leaders, gender pay disparities in the tech world, and addressing workplace biases and strengthening DEI initiatives.
TechTogether Week 2
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