Like any other industry, technology companies have a legal responsibility to support their disabled employees. This is enshrined in the 2010 Equality Act, which defines disabilities as physical or mental impairments that adversely affect people’s day-to-day activities in a “substantial” and “long-term” way.
Under this law, employers can’t discriminate against disabled staff and must be willing to accommodate their needs through reasonable adjustments to the workplace. Ignoring this could result in disabled employees taking their employer to an employment tribunal, which would be both financially and reputationally damaging for firms.
But despite this, the UK tech industry is currently inaccessible to thousands of disabled workers. Research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, suggests that just 11% of UK technology experts are disabled and that the sector is missing 88,000 disabled employees. So, why is this the case, and how can the industry turn this situation around?...