Help disadvantaged young adults develop a career in tech.
Aim of the Tech Ready Programme
Enable disadvantaged young adults (18-24 yrs) to build their experience and network within the technology industry.
What is it?
Tech Ready is a six week programme for young adults who come from a disadvantaged background.
We provide a basic overview of how technology businesses operate, introduce different career options and how to be an effective employee.
Why get involved?
Technology businesses are always in need of strong talent to help drive growth. These young people have bucket loads of initiative, resilience and determination, all they need is an opportunity to apply it.
Being involved in the Tech Ready Programme supports your business objectives by:
- Providing a pipeline of young talent through tax-efficient options.
- Enabling diversity of thought, within your team and within your product.
- Creating a corporate social responsibility program that your team can actively contribute to and be proud of.
- Providing a highly effective and directly beneficial way for your team to use their volunteer day(s).
How to get involved
- Identify an internal contact person who can help match placements.
- Optional: Attend the meet & greet to meet the program participants.
- Provide an opportunity for one or more young people to shadow an experienced member of your team in their chosen discipline. This person would ideally be an effective coach and/ or mentor with capacity to provide guidance outside of regular working activities. We suggest a daily (if working remotely) or weekly (if in person) check-in to help provide context, explain the activities/ actions and next steps.
- Optional: Provide panel speaker(s) for the working sessions.
- Optional: a donation of £3,500 per placement to help fund the running of the program, including paying the young person for their time during the placement and providing funds towards further training.
We provide your team with a briefing on what to expect when working with disadvantaged young people and support through the placement to ensure programme success.Sadie Odeogberin, Head of Centrepoint Works
The Tech Ready Programme
Week 1
Session 1: Introduction to tech businesses
Session 2: Stages of growth
Session 3: Overview of skills and structure
Week 2
Session 4: Deep dive: Product Management and Analytics
Session 5: Deep dive: Design and Research
Session 6: Deep dive: Engineering
Meet and greet: Bring your team to meet the cohort and start matching their interests with potential placements
Week 3
Session 7: Deep dive: Marketing
Session 8: How to stand out as a candidate
Session 9: How to stand out as an employee
Confirm work placements
Week 4, 5 and 6
Work placement (full time) - Shadow an experienced member of your team in their chosen discipline and work on a small project.
Key dates and follow up
We are running two programmes in 2026:
- 13 April - 22 May
- 5 October - 13 November
On programme completion, you can choose to participate in one of three tracks:
- Your team provide mentorship and/or a support network for the young adult(s).
- Offer successful participants a 3-12 month internship (where you take responsibility for their continued training, mainly on-the-job).
- Offer successful participants an apprenticeship - potentially using your Apprenticeship Levy allowance - which includes technology indu try specific further education (we can recommend accredited training providers).