How do we know whether a programme is really helping more young people progress on the pathway to a tech career? 

It is a simple question to ask, but not an easy one to answer. Many of the barriers faced by young people from low-income households, women and girls, and young people from under-represented ethnic groups are deep-rooted. They are shaped by unequal access to networks, role models, skills, opportunities and information about what a career in tech can look like and what are the best routes to follow. 

That is why The Hg Foundation does not only fund programmes. We also invest in understanding whether those interventions are working, for whom, and why (and at what cost).  This is crucial to understanding where and how our funds are best spent to deliver on our mission of a wider and fairer tech talent pipeline. 

Today, we are publishing an updated version of our Partner Outcomes and Evaluation Guide, which sets out how we work with our partners to build practical, proportionate and useful evidence on their programmes. The guide is designed primarily for the organisations we fund and the evaluators they work with, but we hope it will also be useful to others working to widen access to STEM and tech careers. 

A changing landscape

The tech employment landscape has changed significantly since the Foundation was established in 2020. AI is reshaping the skills young people need, the jobs available, and the way people work across almost every sector.  

Our core mission is unchanged: to support more young people from under-represented backgrounds to access and progress into high-quality tech careers. But the outcomes we work towards with partners are becoming more fluid. Alongside education, employability and progression into tech roles, we are increasingly focused on AI proficiency and the broader skills that help people thrive in a changing labour market - including creative thinking, problem-solving, adaptability and entrepreneurship. In this context, strong evidence matters more than ever. 

Led by our partners

At the heart of our approach is the principle that evaluation should be rigorous, proportionate and useful. 

That is why we take a partner-led approach. Our updated guide reflects what we have learned from supporting organisations across the UK, Europe and the US over the last five years. The Foundation brings to the table a clear set of outcomes we are interested in; expertise in designing, commissioning and managing impact evaluations; experience of applying these across our portfolio; and a view of what strong evidence can look like. We also want to understand cost-effectiveness: not as a blunt measure, but as a key part of judging how resources can be used most effectively. Our partners bring something equally important: deep knowledge of the young people and communities they serve, the realities of delivery, and the questions that matter most for refining their programme offers. 

The evidence ladder

A key part of our updated guide is an evidence ladder, which is intended to help partners think about how evidence can be built over time. There is no single route up the ladder, and reaching the “top” is not the goal for every programme. The right approach depends on the question being asked, the maturity of the programme, the data available, and the decisions the evidence needs to inform. 

For some partners, the immediate priority is strengthening the foundations: clarifying outcomes, improving data collection, understanding participant engagement, or building internal capacity to use evidence well. For others, it may be the right moment to test impact more formally, including through independent evaluation. 

Earlier this year, for example, we announced funding for the IntoTech programme, which will be evaluated through one of the first large-scale Randomised Controlled Trials of its kind in the UK. This will test whether structured, repeated early exposure to tech careers can shift the aspirations of young people from lower-income backgrounds. Delivered and co-funded by Futures For All and independently evaluated by NFER and ImpactEd, the programme will reach around 16,000 young people across England over five years. 

But rigorous evaluation does not always mean running a trial. With our French partner Article 1, an early pilot tested whether a Randomised Controlled Trial would be the right next step. While a full trial wasn’t yet feasible, the study generated insights into who participates in the programme, their motivations and aspirations and how the mentoring programme is working in practice. The findings are now shaping how Article 1 strengthens the programme itself, with a full trial a possibility for the future.  

Sharing learning

Ultimately, our aim is to support organisations to build evidence that is reliable, useful and openly shared. 

That means funding evaluation, but it also means helping learning travel across our portfolio of partnerships and into the wider sector. The Foundation convenes partners to learn from each other, shares insights more broadly, and works to scale approaches that are shown to make a difference. 

The Partner Outcomes and Evaluation Guide sets out how we approach this work – aiming to build a stronger shared understanding of what works in widening access to tech careers at a time of scant resources and huge workforce change.