Learning two facts about Britain’s tech industry inspired Anna Brailsford to launch entrepreneurial training business Code First Girls. The first was that the UK’s tech job market is projected to grow to six times its current value to be worth £30 billion by 2025. And the second was that only one in five people in the current tech workforce are women.
“I realised,” Brailsford explains, “that the existing model of tech education was broken. Girls and women were not being encouraged into tech careers throughout their educational and professional life. If we rely on higher education alone, there will be one qualified woman for every 115 roles in technology by 2025. Companies are facing a colossal skills gap and dearth of talent.”
So the 36-year-old decided to tackle the two issues with Code First Girls, which has grown over the past almost two years to become the largest provider of free coding courses for women in the UK. CFG already existed as a campaign group, started by Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford, behind the start-up incubator Entrepreneur First, but in June 2019 Brailsford became its third co-founder, turning the non-profit into a commercial business. Firms now pay between £28,500 and “going into the millions” for an annual subscription, which gives them access to a set number of well-qualified female coders each year. That income covers all course fees for women candidates. Turnover exceeds £5 million this year.
The training is run flexibly: “Our learners can fit their studies flexibly around their lives while landing their dream job — removing barriers for those in full-time education, work, or with caring responsibilities to transition into tech.”
The venture wasn’t Brailsford’s first tech job: after qualifying as a barrister, she pivoted to work for Lynda.com, an online education business acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5 billion in 2015. “I was a part of the fourth-largest acquisition in social media history, and became LinkedIn’s commercial director [in Europe, Middle East and Asia].” But Brailsford had “an entrepreneurial itch”. “I missed Lynda’s start-up culture, the sense of being quick, and trying new stuff.”
So she launched CFG with a blast, working on “an unapologetic brand, a killer product, and an annual recurring revenue model. Unlike many tech founders, I believe that you should achieve product market fit and traction before you should even attempt to fund[raise].”
The entrepreneur spent almost 18 months preparing CFG’s courses: “I needed a curriculum that would act as a magnet for high-potential women — everything from dipping their toe in the water to jumping into a life-changing tech career. I needed to build an educational model with different types of technical intensity, delivery and social interaction.”
Since launch in November 2020, CFG has soared, with clients including five Government departments and some of the UK’s biggest banks including Goldman Sachs, Barclays and NatWest, as well as Nike, Deloitte, Tesco, BT, BAE Systems, and Rolls-Royce. It has partnered with 50 universities across the UK and Ireland, while GCHQ is another user: “If everyone thinks the same, our systems are easier to hack. So GCHQ is working with us to educate and recruit more female coders.” CFG has taught 80,000 women to code so far, “five times as many women as the entire UK university undergraduate system,” Brailsford points out. “It is now the largest provider of free coding courses for women in the UK, having delivered more than £40 million worth of free technology education and teaching.” The entrepreneur’s own figures forecast turnover hitting £100 million by 2026.
CFG closed a £4.5 million funding round from female angel investors. Demand was high, Brailsford adds. “Major figures in tech see our pioneering model as a solution to the tech gender gap. We’ll use this investment for our next ambition: to provide one million opportunities for women to learn to code for free and enter the industry, driving £1 billion in economic opportunities for women and a boost for the entire sector.”
The firm has now entered international markets, with training in the US, France, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands and Hungary.
“My personal goal for the company is that we become the world’s first edtech unicorn dedicated to women. We’ve already begun expanding across Europe and North America, and we have no plans to stop there.”
