Are Military Veterans The Answer To The UK’s Tech Skills Gap?

Military mindset

So, what’s the answer? Well, more and more technology companies are now latching on to the idea that military veterans could be the opportunity everyone is looking for.

It’s a trend that has quite quickly spread throughout the industry. EMC started offering  free IT training to former members of the armed forces nearly two years ago, SAP has its VetForce programme, Microsoft has the Military Affairs initiative, while Accenture and Cisco both have veteran training and job placement programmes of their own.

And now AWS has joined the party, with re:Start partnering with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to focus on disadvantaged training young people and military veterans and their spouses.

The company even signed the Armed Forces Covenant, which establishes how businesses support members of the UK armed forces community, at its launch event last week with General Sir Chris Deverell, Commander of the Joint Forces Command.

When you think about it, military veterans and the technology industry should be a perfect match. Businesses are looking for skilled, hard-working people to join their teams, while veterans are looking to move into exciting, fast-paced careers that will test their skills.

Vicky Gosling OBE, executive lead for Sage’s Veterans Programme, was quick to highlight the skills that military personnel can bring to the business world: “You’ll find that the general military population will be switched on and open to learning because that’s what they do.

“You will definitely have people that are more technically orientated than others, but clearly in the military you’ve got to be digitally savvy to get anywhere, so you’re going to get a good skillset.”

“They’re not necessarily all going to be very technically orientated but I think they will be a good audience to train because they’re very trainable. In the army everything is orientated towards up-skilling you as you’re progressing so you’re mentally orientated that way.”

General Deverell agreed, describing military men and women as representing a workforce “that is by nature committed, determined and highly capable.”

The realisation that former military personnel have plenty to offer the technology industry is certainly growing, but there is still plenty of work to be done. Innovative tech companies have always been great at tapping into the skills of exceptional people and where better to look than at our military men and women?

Quiz: What do you know about London’s technology scene?