Women and Girls in Coding

By The Code Zone team 27 September 2020 3 min read

Lucy Woodhead on her experience as a woman in coding, and why diversity in the technoloy sector starts with our children's education.

My name is Lucy and I am currently a Software Developer at GSK. I love working as a developer, but only learned to code at age 24! I graduated with a degree in music, and landed my first role as a Project Officer with my local government. It just so happened that the projects I was delivering were all digital and web based, and I was required to work closely with the software development team. I would always see the team with lines of code up on their screen, but didn’t have a clue what it was or how it worked!

After expressing an interest, I began to do some very basic website changes and absolutely loved it! It was very rewarding to see my own updates reflected on the website within seconds. I started teaching myself to code in my spare time, however after a few years and a few more project roles, I decided to fully commit to coding. I retrained at an intensive bootcamp - it was the best decision I ever made!

Although I really enjoy what I do and am proud of my career change, I am frustrated I was not exposed to programming sooner. If I knew I liked it at a younger age I would have definitely pursued it and been able to make an impact sooner. On reflection, programming wasn’t highlighted as a career option throughout school which is, in my opinion, the most important time for children to develop hobbies and be made aware of the paths they could take.

A further issue is the lack of women in technology, as programming is often stereotyped as ‘for boys.’ In my first developer position I was the only woman in the team for a long time, and rarely see other business with women in software roles, and even fewer women in technical leadership positions. However, this is now starting to change with some amazing Women in Tech communities around the country who love to get together and empower each other!

What people should also understand is that technology benefits from a diverse team. Software built by a team of people who think in the same way, will probably not be a good fit for everyone in society. Given that technology infiltrates every part of our lives, diversity amongst the team building the products is the only way that the output can be unbiased.

If children learn from a young age they will not only see how technology changes first hand but also understand how it’s woven into the world. This can lead to interests in anything from health tech, financial tech and even space tech - industries that need people from all backgrounds!

The Code Zone clubs are really helping to address the issues above and I’m so happy to see that they facilitate children to learn about it in an engaging and rewarding way. Whilst I encourage your children to try it, you should also give it a go - it’s a lot of fun!

Who wrote this

We run coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16, so the guides here are written by the mentors who teach them rather than by a marketing team. Live online clubs are open to children anywhere in the UK, and our in-person clubs run across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

A live club is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor.

Children build their own games rather than working through a set course, starting in Scratch or MakeCode and moving to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.

Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up a level or would rather stay where they are. Levels move down as readily as up. Nothing is forced, and staying put is a perfectly good outcome.

In 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers, scored by five independent judges on safeguarding, inclusivity and community impact, and in 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society. Over 1,000 children are enrolled.

The blog is in two halves. Guides are the evergreen explainers written by the mentors who teach the clubs, covering the questions parents actually ask: what comes after Scratch, how to support a coding-mad child when you cannot code yourself, and what works for autistic and ADHD children.

Club news is the other half, and it is where posts like this one live: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups, written up by whoever ran the session. Neither is marketing. If you want to know what an hour actually looks like before you book anything, club news is the more honest read of the two.

The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details. Book a free taster session, see what it costs, or read about support for neurodivergent children.

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Women and Girls in Coding

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