Last week, Tamara Philips, Adtrak’s first web design apprentice, and Kate Cox, a trainee web designer, attended The Skills Show to present a speech about learning to code. Accompanied by their team leader, Dave Prosser, they headed down to Birmingham NEC where thousands of young people were gathered for the nation’s largest skills and careers event.
The Skills Show
The Skills Show, which took place from the 19th – 21st November, aims to provide young people with inspiration, helping them to further their skills and gain employment following education. There were a number of well-known faces present, including businessman and Skills Show patron Theo Paphitis, celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke and renowned London chef Theo Randall.
A large variety of companies and industries are represented at The Skills Show, allowing visitors the chance to chat to experts whilst also taking part in a plethora of activities. This year, for example, you could learn how to build and plaster a wall, have a go at a dissection with the Operating Theatre Live, or climb a towering indoor wall while soldiers shouted their instructions!
Tamara and Kate were based at the Business and Studio Spotlight Stage. This area focused on exploring careers in both the business and creative industries and, with presentations from a number of other speakers, including O2 and the Civil Service, Tamara and Kate were in excellent company.
Learning to Code
2015 has seen an emphasis placed on coding and technology, particularly the involvement of women in these fields. The Skills Show reinforced this notion and Tamara and Kate’s presentation was one of a number of talks focused on the importance of coding and the representation of young women in the technological industry.
During their talk, Tamara and Kate focused specifically on their experiences of learning to code and how it has changed their career prospects as a result. They are both part of the 73% of women at Adtrak who can code. Tamara taught herself, largely through the use of Youtube videos, and Kate – like 50% of the female coders at Adtrak – learnt HTML and CSS skills whilst in employment here.
Both Tamara and Kate feel learning to code has widened their career options and given them opportunity for growth. They are continuing to learn new skills and have hopes of becoming junior web designers at Adtrak in the future.
Training and Development at Adtrak
Training young people to code is something which resonates with Adtrak’s core values. In fact, training and development is a company objective for this year. We have a reputation for hiring young people straight out of college and university and giving them the necessary skills to excel within our industry. Both Tamara and Kate are testament to this and a fantastic example of Adtrak’s commitment to the development of our employees’ skills.
We would like to congratulate Kate and Tamara on a job well done! Their speech was expertly executed and perfectly demonstrated how valuable coding is as a skill, particularly for young people today.
