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UNLOCKING HIDDEN TALENT: WHY CAREER SWITCHERS ARE A STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
Swati Patel is a Social Value Manager in Public Sector and Health at Cognizant where she combines her bid management and social value expertise with a passion for meaningful change. She oversees the full lifecycle of social value commitments for Public Sector & Health clients, nurturing partnerships and grantee relationships to deliver outcomes that genuinely improve lives and strengthen communities. Swati is particularly passionate about empowering younger generations and ensuring everyone has equitable access to digital skills and opportunities.
Across the technology sector, organisations are grappling with intensifying skills shortages, rising competition for experienced talent, and the growing need to build a workforce that is resilient, diverse, and future-ready. At Cognizant, we believe that one of the most powerful – yet often overlooked – solutions lie in an unexpected place: career switchers.
Through our partnership with Code First Girls, we have seen first-hand how individuals transitioning from other fields bring a depth of capability that strengthens teams, accelerates innovation, and creates a healthier long-term talent pipeline.
Beyond the "non-traditional candidate": The strengths career switchers bring
Career switchers are frequently labelled as “non-traditional”, but in today’s dynamic tech landscape, their qualities are exactly what business leaders are looking for.
1. Adaptability and continuous learning
Switching careers requires individuals to embrace change, acquire new skills quickly, and navigate unfamiliar environments – all traits essential in technology roles where tools, methods, and market needs evolve rapidly.
Women who upskill with Code First Girls spend around four months building their tech foundations. The programme is designed to be flexible around working hours, but it’s still a real commitment: four evenings a week of live tutorials, self-paced learning, assessments and group projects. By the time they have completed the course, these career switchers have already demonstrated the agility needed to transition successfully.
2. Commercial awareness and cross-sector insight
Those coming from backgrounds such as retail, healthcare, education, law, and operations bring a nuanced understanding of real-world business challenges. This commercial grounding helps teams design solutions with stronger customer empathy, clearer business logic, and a sharper focus on value.
Take ex-healthcare professionals as an example: around 10% of the Code First Girls community are former NHS staff, and thousands have since transitioned into exciting tech roles, including within the public sector. These women bring invaluable skills to the table – from explaining complex ideas in simple terms to thinking on their feet. Once they start their new roles, Code First Girls supports them with personalised learning plans, clear KPIs, and 1:1 technical coaching. This enables them to combine real-world experience and sector insight with the technical skills they need to thrive in tech.
3. Resilience and motivation
Changing careers is rarely easy. It requires perseverance, discipline, and a genuine commitment to growth. These individuals aren’t entering tech because it’s fashionable – they’re making an intentional, often life-changing, decision to build a long-term career. That motivation positively influences retention and performance. In fact, women who go through the Code First Girls programme have an impressive 98% job retention rate.
Structured training turns potential into high-performing talent
While career switchers bring exceptional strengths, structured development is the catalyst that helps them succeed in technical roles. Our four-year partnership with Code First Girls provides just that. Through the programme, 8,600 women from local communities have been taught to code and 60 have been hired into Cognizant across the UK and Ireland. Of those hired into Cognizant, over half identify as career switchers.
Through CFG’s rigorous training programmes – including Software Engineering, Data, DevOps, Cloud, and AI foundations – women acquire the technical capability, project experience, and industry readiness needed to enter high-demand tech roles with confidence. The curriculum is aligned with the SFIA framework, a globally recognised standard for IT and digital skills that defines roles, responsibilities, and competency levels. This ensures that the training provides the women with the specific skills that our clients and organisation needs.
Cognizant builds on this foundation with role-specific training, mentorship, on-the-job learning, and supportive career pathways that accelerate their development.
This combination of technical training + nurturing environment + clear progression routes create a high-potential talent pipeline that continuously delivers value to our clients.
A strategic advantage for HR, Talent and D&I Leaders
For hiring leaders, embracing career switchers is no longer about “giving someone a chance”. It is a strategic workforce decision that supports leaders:
- Supply chain resilience – reducing dependency on a shrinking pool of experienced hires by investing in career switchers who bring proven adaptability, problem-solving capability and cross-industry expertise – critical traits for building an innovative, stable and future-ready supply chain.
- Diversity and inclusion – bringing more women, diverse backgrounds, and underrepresented groups into tech roles. Among the women sponsored by Cognizant via Code First Girls, 67% come from underrepresented ethnicities, and nearly half are the first generation to attend university.
- Innovation – injecting new viewpoints, problem-solving styles, and lived experiences into teams.
- Stronger retention – motivated individuals invested in long-term career growth.
- Better digital outcomes in government – we are working with government and talented female career switchers trained by Code First Girls to optimise critical government platforms and services.
Unlocking hidden potential: A call to action
At Cognizant, our work with Code First Girls has proven that career switchers are not just capable – they are transformative. They challenge assumptions, enrich teams, and bring the adaptability needed to thrive in an ever-changing tech landscape.
For organisations looking to future-proof their workforce, the message is clear: Career switchers are not a compromise. They are a competitive advantage.
