Technology education desperately needs input from the professionals. So, where is it?

The latest set of GCSE and A-Level results in the UK have highlighted some major concerns for the technology sector and access to future skilled workers – as well as showing no signs of tackling the ongoing imbalance around women in tech.

Firstly, the number of students opting to take a computing subject has dropped; secondly there’s still a rather large gender gap when it comes to tech education.

Of the more than six million GCSEs sat this year, computing accounted for just 92,000, a four percent decrease compared to 2024. Female students made up only 23% of the total, similar to the number of women working in the technology sector. While this represented only a small decrease year-on-year, at 1.5%, any drop in girls taking computing matters when they are so outnumbered by boys in the first place.

Looking at the broader GCSE results highlights that secondary schools, dictated partly by the national curriculum and partly by teacher availability, are still dominated by traditional subjects. Leaving aside the compulsory trio of maths, English and science that all students have to take, the most popular choices with GCSE students are geography and history, at over 300,000 exams sat for each; religious studies at 238,000; and Spanish and French, at around 135,000 each.

This isn’t necessarily because so many more children have a passion for religion, geography or languages. Often, it’s due to how many teachers a school has in a particular subject, which dictates the timetable and how many GCSE classes each subject can accommodate.

Gender gap

There’s the ongoing challenge of getting girls to continue their computing education, too, to try and help close the gender gap. My 13-year-old daughter is fairly typical, it seems, in the gap between her ability at computing and her willingness to consider it as a GCSE option.

In her end of year test, she scored 80%, against an average for her year group of 61%, and her computing teacher is keen for her to choose computing at GCSE. This idea was firmly dismissed by my daughter, as she says it’s too difficult. I also found myself questioning the computing teacher (who happens to be a woman) on whether computing GCSE classes at the school tend to be dominated by boys, as that’s another concern expressed by my daughter.

At A-level, there’s a similar pattern when it comes to the gender divide and declining numbers. Of the 882,509 A-levels sat this summer, just 19,796 were computing, a three percent decrease year-on-year. Only 3,679 females chose to sit a computing A-level, a slight increase on 2024 but still representing just 19% of overall students.

With 93% of mid-market organizations facing an IT skills shortage, the decrease in computing students is a worry.

According to Ian Thomas, Chief Operating Officer at Node4, it’s disappointing and surprising that the number of students studying computing has fallen this year. He points out:

This is the generation that has grown up with computers. Their leisure activities involve technology, and they are often the first to be called when a family member has an IT issue. They are also one of the most efficient and innovative generations we have seen – if there is a quicker way to do something, it will be this generation that finds it.

The low uptake of computing exams among so many young people indicates a disconnect between what’s being taught in schools and the real-world developments taking place in the tech industry. Thomas adds:

I have experienced this firsthand working closely with local schools, having had many discussions with students who don’t consider technology to be exciting. They often perceive that an IT job involves sitting at a desk and writing lines of code all day, but that isn’t the case. By working closely with schools and showing students the opportunities available to them before they choose their options, [tech companies] can change the perception of the industry and encourage more students, of all genders, to study computing and go on to have successful careers in technology.

My take

So, what’s to be done?

By forging close relationships with schools, technology firms could help to not only overturn any negative perceptions children may have about working in the industry, but also overcome the minimal amount of computing teaching taking place.

At our local comprehensive schools, students up to the age of 15 have one hour of computing lessons per week. At my daughter’s secondary school, this is the same amount as drama, dance and music, and less than subjects like history, geography and PE. In fact, it’s similar to when I was at secondary school in the 1990s.

With technology such a vital part of all our lives, and with the rapid and ongoing developments around artificial intelligence reshaping society, computing should be more on a par with the core subjects in school like maths and English, with multiple lessons per week for all students. The computing curriculum also needs to either allow a lot more flexibility to allow rapid changes to what is taught; or to be updated on an annual basis. Students should be mastering the very latest technology in their lessons rather than following outdated programs. As the UK Department for Education noted earlier this year:

The current computer science GCSE subject content was published in January 2015, and, since that time, digital technology has advanced, meaning some content has become dated.

To say that over the past 10 years, digital technology has advanced and some content has become dated is a rather hefty understatement, considering those 10 years include the arrival of ChatGPT and a whole host of generative AI tools. Computing lessons should already be covering the impact of gen AI, how to manipulate it and how to apply AI to real-world problems, so that students have insight into how it works rather than just asking ChatGPT to write them an essay on the Tudors.

But the current shortage of teachers, especially in STEM subjects like computing and maths, makes this nigh-on impossible to achieve. It’s difficult enough for schools to recruit and retain any computing teacher, let alone one who is an expert in all the cutting-edge industry advancements.

While technology is becoming a more important part of our lives, the number of computing teachers has fallen from 12,218 in 2011 to 8,435 in 2022, a 31% decrease. This drop is having the worst impact on more disadvantaged students.

According to a recent survey from education charity Teach First, 31% of schools that offer A-levels in the poorest communities don’t offer computer science A-level due to a lack of teachers trained in that subject. This is nearly three times the rate in the wealthiest areas. The charity argues this leaves thousands of pupils from poorer backgrounds shut out of one of the best-paid career paths.

The problem is, how do you convince a skilled technologist to go down the teaching path rather than have their pick of well-paid jobs? According to 3Search Group, the technology sector offers the highest paying jobs in the UK with an average salary of £90,000, almost double the average salary of a teacher.

Solving all the above – the decline in students taking computing exams; the gender gap within computing classrooms; the outdated curriculum; and the lack of computing teachers – isn’t something that can be done easily and quickly. In the meantime, a more immediate step would be for tech professionals to approach their local school and offer their time to go in and work with students on the latest technologies.

This would give young people access to people with knowledge of the very latest tech developments, it would help ease pressure on schools around finding their next computing teacher, and it would help build a pipeline of skilled tech enthusiasts for the future workforce.