"UK Spies Fund New Course for Female Coders"

The UK's main intelligence agency for dealing with cyber threats (GCHQ) is hoping to attract more female coders to its ranks by recently starting a new bootcamp course.  GCHQ is sponsoring one of the 14-week 'nanodegree' courses run by social enterprise Code First Girls, designed to appeal to women who may be considering a career change.  Jo Cavan, the director of strategy policy and engagement at the security agency, stated that teams such as those in counter-terrorism have seen performance improve since becoming more diverse.  Cavan noted that the agency knows that getting the right mix of minds will give them a competitive advantage, and that's why they talk about labor diversity as being mission critical.  Cavan claimed that GCHQ needs greater diversity to improve its standing in countering threats from the east.  According to the certifications organization ISC2, women still occupy only 25% of roles in the cybersecurity sector globally.  Interestingly its 2021 industry report found that fewer women (38%) in the industry came from an IT background than men (50%) and that women have higher rates of entry from self-learning than men (20% vs. 14%).  These figures indicate there could be a potentially large pool of female job-seekers looking to switch careers to one in cyber.

Infosecurity reports: "UK Spies Fund New Course for Female Coders"