CodeClan is Shaping Scotland’s Digital Landscape.
As Scotland’s first and only SQA accredited digital skills academy they are on a mission to help bridge the digital skills gap in Scotland’s growing tech industry, recently passing the milestone of training their 2,000th graduate.
They have pioneered campaigns to promote coding to the nation, such as leading National Coding Week sessions intended to attract more women into the sector.
In the Scotsman Big Interview with CEO Melinda Matthews-Clarkson they describe how she has led the transformation of the organization to address a much deeper career support program especially for women.
There is a big focus on inclusivity and diversity, she’s been building up her all-female leadership team and has partnered with Smart Works, a charity supporting unemployed women so that every female CodeClan student attends a Smart Works session to receive an outfit suitable for interviews and relevant coaching.
The outcomes for improving careers has been amazing, with graduates boosting their annual earnings from £16,000 to £18,000 a year to averaging between £25,000 and £28,000. CodeClan offers a range of tie-ups, with an increasingly popular option seeing companies sponsor existing employees to become “technical agents of change” in their organisations.
Melinda sees technical ability as an essential skill for the whole nation, from those in their later years through to the very youngest, as more and more all of society’s functions move online, with the potential to transform the country for greater social benefit. Last year CodeClan introduced its Client Xperience scheme, partnering students with charities and community organisations that lack technical resources. This allows students to spend two weeks transferring classroom skills to a real-world environment while making a social impact.
