Six major UK employers have become the first organisations to sign a commitment to help armed forces veterans and their partners find meaningful employment in technology and digital roles after leaving the military.
Capita, Northrop Grumman, Atos, Leonardo UK, Fujitsu and Leidos and are the first companies to join 15,000 Futures after pledging to fill a proportion of their digital vacancies with former servicemen and women, along with their families.
The initiative was started by workforce technology platform WithYouWithMe, a social impact firm which supports armed forces veterans, as well as other marginalised sections of society, by delivering innovative aptitude testing and digital skills training for high demand tech careers.
Each year, 15,000 people leave the UK military and return to civilian life, but can struggle to find meaningful employment.
Meanwhile, there is a growing global digital skills gap that veterans and their families are able to fill by undertaking the free digital skills training that WithYouWithMe offer on their platform.
Jon Lewis, CEO of Capita, said: “Competition for talent – in particular digital talent – is a strategically important issue for Capita and our public and private sector clients.
“WithYouWithMe is helping to solve this issue by fostering new pools of talent from diverse and underemployed communities, particularly military veterans, and in doing so creating significant social value. This fits perfectly with our ethos at Capita.
“We are proud to be a founding member of the 15,000 Future campaign and look forward to working with other leading businesses to make it a success.”
Since it was founded, WithYouWithMe has seen more than 75,000 individuals from around the world, including refugees and neurodivergent individuals, join their platform.
Tom Moore, a former Australian platoon commander and founder and CEO of WithYouWithMe, said: “We are delighted to have these first six companies join the 15,000 Futures initiative.
“The response from businesses across the UK has been overwhelming and we are confident that, with the significant commitment they have made, thousands of military veterans will have a more fulfilling career once their time in the military comes to an end.”
Rather than relying on CVs, WithYouWithMe provide aptitude and psychometric testing through its through its Potential platform to match candidates to a range of high-demand digital roles.
Cyber expert Sally Walker, who is a non-executive director at WithYouWithMe, said: “The current set up reduces candidates to two pages of A4, we call it a CV. I don’t believe it’s a fair or accurate representation of the talent that exists within the veteran community despite their considerable latent potential.”
WithYouWithMe then provides free training pathways – accredited through the likes of GCHQ and ANSI – to give candidates the optimum chance of success when placed with large employers.
WithYouWithMe’s team of UK advisers who also support the 15,000 Futures initiative include former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Sir James Everard, and Rear Admiral Jim Macleod, who was most recently the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff Personnel Capability.
WithYouWithMe is Asia Pacific’s fastest-growing tech company.