Breaking barriers and building careers
Deloitte and Code First Girls have teamed up to build skills and create job opportunities
To tackle gender imbalance head-on, Deloitte has partnered with the social impact organisation Code First Girls (CFG) to unlock exciting new career pathways for women in tech, and within our firm. Women currently represent just 26% of the UK’s tech workforce.
To help address the imbalance, Deloitte has joined forces with the social impact organisation Code First Girls (CFG) to open new career possibilities within the industry, and our firm. Since the launch, more than 1,720 women have applied for roles at Deloitte through our programme with CFG. By September 2025, we had hired 56 women into technical roles within Deloitte.
"While we’ve benefited from greater diversity, hearing the participants’ feedback on the impact of the programme and the wider teams’ investment in their development has been fantastic."
Puja Shah, Director, Audit & Assurance, Deloitte UK
A practical pathway to a more inclusive workforce
Programme participants initially join us on a 12-month contract. This provides them with both a job and valuable real-life work experience.
What’s more, this opportunity is open to all: university level qualifications are not a prerequisite. Each participant studies for a Deloitte-sponsored, fully funded course from CFG. They complete the course over 16 weeks, alongside their existing commitments.
The initiative began in 2021 in our Engineering practice, expanding to Audit & Assurance Analytics in 2023.
Opening the door to a new career
The CFG initiative unlocks new career paths for women from different professional backgrounds, helping them to enter the tech sector for the first time. These have included charity sector workers, hair dressers and teachers.
Abbey Prickett, a joiner from the 2023 cohort swapped a career as a small business owner to become a Data Analyst at Deloitte, without previously having a university degree.
Her skills in management, communication and problem-solving gave her an edge. Through the programme, she developed her technical expertise and is now a Deloitte employee.
Abbey says: “To say I have grown in the past year is an understatement. My life has transformed. I’ve met incredible people, and I absolutely love what I do. This experience has shown me the power of determination and the possibilities that open up when you put your mind to something.”
“It’s a staple in our business area,” says Fraser Macsporran, who works in Engineering within our Technology & Transformation business. “But we want to spread the word across the rest of Deloitte and get as many areas involved as possible.”
This project has been recognised through the Deloitte NSE Impact Awards, an internal recognition programme which celebrates the impact our people and teams make on clients, people and society.
