New programme aims to plug cyber security skills gap with UK veterans

A new non-profit programme has been launched to help UK veterans and service leavers begin a new career in the tech and cyber security industry.

The Veterans Digital Cyber Academy has been set up by TechVets with the help of Immersive Labs to provide free cyber security training with the aim of going on to work in a sector that could suffer a major skills shortage in coming years if its growing talent gap isn’t addressed.

Over 15,000 people leave the UK military every year, amounting to more than 900,000 working-age veterans in the UK right now.

Ex-army major and one of the programme’s founders Peter Connolly believes that more can be done to make use of this highly viable workforce.

“While [these people] are highly trained, hard-working, bright minds, they typically do not find their way into the tech industry due to predominantly a lack of connections," explained Mr Connolly.

"We aim to address this missed opportunity by the TechVets programme bringing in veterans to help build our digital future.”

TechVets says it will create new opportunities for ‘tech-curious’ veterans through partnerships with industry champions and academic institutes.