The UK’s digital skills shortage costs the economy £63bn a year, and the young people best placed to close it are being left behind. Girls, ethnic minorities and students from low-income households remain significantly underrepresented in computing, while teachers lack the specialist training and confidence to change that. Meanwhile, The Royal Society stresses the urgent need for a digitally skilled population to solve the climate crisis, while UNESCO research shows only 41% of young people can explain climate change.
Digit tackles both sides of this problem. Through free, hands-on programmes, children in underrepresented communities learn to code by building real environmental tools: energy monitors that help schools cut waste, soil moisture sensors that save water, air quality trackers that generate data for local campaigns. Resources include diverse role models so learners can see themselves in STEM, are accessible for SEND learners, culturally relevant, and free to download. At the same time, we train their teachers to deliver computing with confidence, creating lasting change that continues long after we leave.
This year, we surpassed 1 million young people reached and trained over 23,000 educators, with three part-time staff, five freelancers and no office, nearly doubling our lifetime reach in just twelve months. Across our programmes, student confidence and interest in coding and STEM careers rose by approximately 70%, and 9 in 10 teachers said they would deliver our programmes again. After one session, a teacher told us: “The children loved it and were asking when the next one is!”
