25 February 2019
GCHQ
Britain's cyber spy headquarters GCHQ has launched an all-female training course in a bid to recruit women spies and redress the gender imbalance in the intelligence community.
Based in Cheltenham, GCHQ said classes for teenagers held across Britain in cyber-skills and intelligence will help to recruit more diversified agents.
The CyberFirst Girls’ Defenders course is expcted to see 600 applicants take part in residential and non-residential training events. The plan is to open cyber-skills to teenage girls in what is traditionally a male-dominated field.
The wider CyberFirst programme offers a range of courses and student bursaries for 11 to 17-year olds. GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre has estimated around 90 per cent of the global cyber workforce are men.
