Open Tech Calendar

Join us at our first Code & Coffee Morning to hear why retraining into digital could be for you.

Things are looking bright in Scotland's digital technology sector.

Not only is the number of digital technology jobs growing, but salaries are following suit (in 2016 the average annual salary was £37,500, 30% higher than the Scottish average of £28,000).

But a digital skills gap is causing concern

The 2018 Scottish Technology Industry Survey highlighted the huge skills gap created by too few people entering the market to fill employer demand.

At CodeClan, we help more than 300 people a year retrain into digital in just 16-weeks, but the industry needs even more new recruits to continue its growth.

Hear why a career change into digital could be for you

We've invited some leading names from around Scotland's digital tech sector to each discuss in just five minutes their experience creating jobs and recruiting new staff.

Speakers will include Kelli Buchan, an expert in talent acquisition who has connections to a large number of Startups, SMEs and Blue Chip companies in Scotland, Charles Harley, CTO at Care Sourcer (the care comparison and matching website, that recently raised £8.5m in funding) and Andrew Wykes, Engineering & Customer Experience Director for Financial Planning and Retirement at Scottish Widows.

They'll explain why the industry is worth shifting into, the kind of people they're looking to hire and the type of personal and financial rewards available.

We'll also invite back CodeClan graduates to discuss their decision to retrain into digital, one of whom now works at Cultivate in Edinburgh.

You'll then have an opportunity to ask them questions in a panel discussion.

More on our speakers:

Kelli Buchan
Kelli has been working in the Technology Sector in Scotland for the last 15 years and is a highly respected recruiter who is able to attract talent to companies, advise individuals on how to progress or start a career in the technology space. She works onsite for clients and has worked at Amazon, FanDuel, Administrate, CareSourcer and many more fast growing companies. She is usually in Codebase every week and is always happy to meet people for coffee to offer advise and make introductions to companies on behalf of people looking to get into the industry.

Charles Harley
Charles graduated in 2007 from the University of Edinburgh with a BEng in Software Engineering. Since then he has worked across multiple platforms from hosted applications to native iOS and Android apps. As Head of Engineering at Kotikan, Charles helped build one of Scotland's leading mobile app agencies. Following the acquisition by FanDuel he moved into a Director of Engineering role before transitioning to Float, one of Scotland's up and coming startups, to help build the engineering team and SaaS product. Charles is currently the CTO at Care Sourcer, a care comparison and matching website.

Kate Preston
Kate is a full-stack software developer who currently works at Cultivate, having completed CodeClan’s software development course in May. Prior to starting the course Kate had been on maternity leave from her role as Admissions Manager here at CodeClan, and had previously worked in education policy.

Andrew Wykes
Andrew was appointed Financial Planning & Retirement Engineering Lead at Scottish Widows in January 2018 where he is responsible for leading the team to deliver transformational technology change across Financial Planning and Retirement, within Insurance and Wealth. FP&R Engineering requires significant transformation to simplify the platform landscape (c200 platforms) and to modernise ways of working and capabilities of the c900 colleagues to improve pace and quality whilst simplifying the IT landscape.

Come along for a coffee and a chat with our panel!

Timings
8.30 - 9.00 Arrival and coffee/tea

9.00 - 10.00 Five minute presentations and panel session

10.00 - 10.15 Closing summary/mingle