Next Tech Fest: Breaking tech role misconceptions

“You don’t have to code to be a techie,” claimed one of the many speakers at the 2025 Next Tech Fest, which was run and hosted by social enterprise Next Tech Girls.

With more than 350 girls between the ages of 15 and 20 in attendance, the event aimed to give attendees a look at what tech careers involve and to break down misconceptions about the people who work in tech and their roles.

Most of the girls in the audience raised their hands when asked if they thought coding was necessary to work in tech, but Next Tech Girls director Emily Hall-Strutt responded that tech is “very broad” and spans “so many industries” that “a vast majority of roles don’t require any coding.”.

Misconceptions about what tech jobs involve, along with being deterred from relevant subjects at school, are often-cited reasons as to why the number of young women choosing science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers is increasing slowly.

In operation since 2016, Next Tech Girls has helped to provide more than 10,000 girls with guidance about tech sector careers, partly by helping them to fully understand paths into tech, available tech roles and showcase women already working in the sector. For example, many young girls claim STEM subjects are “too hard”, but the speakers at Next Tech Fest suggested that this is because of the belief that coding is integral to a tech career.

Naamua Dodoo, software engineer at Tesco, shared with the audience she doesn’t “code for fun”, and warned attendees off worrying about what they think someone working in coding should look like, adding: “You are who you are – don’t worry about not fitting the software engineer stereotype.”

A lack of visible and accessible roles models is a large reason as to many girls don’t choose technology careers, as they don’t see others like them in tech roles and therefore believe it’s a place they will not be welcome. As well as those working in software engineering, one of the panels at the event was made up exclusively of those whose roles don’t require coding, offering different perspectives on what a tech career can look like.

Many of the women on the “no code” panel also didn’t initially realise there were tech roles that didn’t require coding. Sumaya Ahmed, product designer at Just Eat, said she “cried every time” she had to do coding at university and admitted her career has been “squiggly”, but there is “nothing to be ashamed of” about an unconventional career path.

“I wanted to get into tech, so I thought the best way to do that was through a computer science masters,” she said. “Very quickly, I realised how much I hated coding – I would cry every time I coded – and I did that for the entire year, and then I learned about the wonderful world of UX.”

While technical skills are important for many technology roles, soft and transferable skills are harder to learn, and the technical skills for a role can be picked up later, with the event speakers reiterating that employers do not expect people coming into the sector to know everything as soon as they start.

With various different routes into tech that don’t necessarily require a technical degree or background, Lilymae Prescott, senior UX designer at Sky, pointed out that someone’s educational path only says so much about them.

“Upskill, grow your skills, grow your network, show that you care about what you want and the future that you want,” she said. “If you’ve got passion for it, everything else will come later; employers don’t expect you to know everything. It’s the passion and the care that comes first.”

Despite advances surrounding diversity in tech, including a focus on building an inclusive culture within organisations so everyone feels welcome, there are still numerous difficulties for people from underrepresented groups aiming to go into tech.

Speakers at the event agreed that there can be prejudice around not using coding in a tech role, with Gayle Thompson-Igwebike, head of community at Next Tech Girls, claiming male co-workers may try to “out tech you” or make comments such as, “if you don’t code, what are you even doing?”. But she pointed out that coding is “not really the only type of technical that we have”, highlighting the multitude of different roles and projects people in the industry work on, adding: “There is nothing we do that is a waste, [there is nothing] that could not be taken into the tech industry.”

Similarly, Alianna Danise Bonifacio, junior software developer at EY, said that while the tech sector can be “really scary because tech is always evolving”, it is part of all industries – including art, fashion and music – and those looking for a tech career need to be “fearless”.

This gives young people the opportunity to be creative and ambitious when it comes to establishing their technology career, especially in the age of AI where a future role may not yet have been created.