There has been a significant increase the number of young people in the UK applying to university courses on computing, according to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.
It said the total has rose by 9.6% for the next academic year, more than for all other university subjects, and attributed the increase to the high profile of AI and range of career options in areas such as cyber security and climate change data science.
The BCS analysis of January deadline data from university admissions board UCAS found that computing degrees have also seen an 18% growth in applications from women. Male students still outnumber them in computer science by 3.8 to 1 this year, but the gap has closed slightly from 4.2 to 1 at the same stage in the application cycle in 2022.
In total there were 92,980 applications from UK 18-year-olds to start UK computing degrees this year.
Changing the world
Julia Adamson, managing director for education and public benefit at BCS, said: “Young people – and an increasing proportion of young women – see that a computing degree is a passport to change the world. AI and machine learning are transforming how kids complete homework and how job applicants write the covering letters.
“It’s no wonder so many people see their futures in technology. The more diverse range of people we have working in computing the fairer and more inclusive the results will be for all of us.”
