TechFirst Women's Programme: pre-procurement now open

Pre-procurement for TechFirst Women's Programme is now open - a UK government workforce development intervention designed to increase the participation, retention and progression of women in high-growth digital and frontier technology sectors.

The programme will procure a women‑focused training and deployment model delivering employer‑aligned technical instruction, workplace‑readiness training, wraparound pastoral support and structured mentoring.

The total value of the contract is £4 million (estimated). Pre-procurement closes 10am on 20 April 2026.

The programme will procure a women-focused training and deployment model delivering employer‑aligned technical instruction, workplace‑readiness training, wraparound pastoral support, and structured mentoring.

This will enable a target of 300 women to progress into meaningful entry and mid‑level roles in frontier‑tech sectors.

Training will be co-designed with employers to ensure alignment with real occupational needs in areas such as software engineering, cyber security, data engineering, cloud/DevOps, AI/ML operations and telecoms/network engineering.

The programme should reduce the cost burden on SMEs, helping them to participate in the digital economy and adopt emerging technologies that would otherwise be inaccessible due to recruitment and training costs.

The programme sets a target of 80% employment into mid-career roles, and 20% deployment into early-career roles.

Eligibility requirements

The supplier needs to registered to Jaggaer (link to register is included on webpage).