Rosie M | Head of People Experience
When I’m (constructively) challenged about our diversity practices here at Cuckoo – whether it’s by senior leaders, candidates, or colleagues – my answer is always the same: it’s our responsibility to make sure our talent pipeline reflects the society we live in today.
And yes, today we’re talking specifically about women because of GirlCode. But when I say, "reflect society," I mean across the board: race, sexual orientation, disabilities, neurodiversity – the whole spectrum.
Here’s where it gets tricky. Because it’s easy to assume I mean a perfect 50/50 gender split, right? After all, according to the Office for National Statistics, 49% of the UK population is female. But that’s not the full story. Should we expect half of our engineering team to be women? Not quite.
And here’s why: Bath University’s research shows that out of roughly 400,000 software engineers in the UK, only 17% identify as women. So that ideal pipeline I just mentioned? In reality, it’s largely male (83% to be exact).
Now, let me pause for a moment – because at Cuckoo, we believe in merit-based hiring. We’ve got an outstanding engineering team, all of whom earned their spot through a rigorous process of competency-based interviews, values assessments, and task-based challenges. And yes, they’re mostly men.
But because we know that the best teams don’t look, sound or think like a monolith, Cuckoo is committed to creating the best, most diverse team it can. Which is where our company value of ‘we are different’ comes in.
So what’s our role as an inclusive hiring team? Well, for starters, it’s about being proactive. It’s not enough to simply post a job and wait. We’ve been committed to inclusive hiring for years – blinding CVs to avoid unconscious bias, using mixed interview panels, and ensuring our job descriptions are inclusive. But there’s always more we can do.
That’s why I’m thrilled to share that we’re partnering with GirlCode, a platform dedicated to helping women break into engineering roles. Because again, at a minimum, our team should and must reflect the society we live in. But if I’m honest, we want to make it reflect society as it could be too.
We’ve teamed up with Cuckoo because, like us, they’re all about making things better. Just as they refuse to accept the old broadband industry norms of sneaky prices and poor service, GirlCode trains women to pursue careers in coding and tech, to make for a more mixed, diverse and effective workforce.
And by supporting GirlCode, Cuckoo are giving those women more opportunities to help shape and determine the industry’s future.
- Girlcode
Teaming up with Cuckoo
Visit our careers page to stay updated on vacancies
In recent years, the recruitment world has become increasingly aware of how unconscious biases can influence their processes and practices. This has led to some brilliant work being done globally to eliminate bias.
Imagine bringing together over 300 people from different companies, cultures, backgrounds and experiences into one new company. How do you get those people to feel like one? Well, you ask them one simple question: What values do you want to have to make you feel like you belong at Cuckoo? .
If we’re to attract more women into the industry, we need to shatter the illusion that telecoms is a technical profession. We need to educate on the variety of roles in telecoms and that they are available to anyone regardless of gender.