WhiteHat

WhiteHat is a tech startup on a mission to create a diverse group of future leaders by building outstanding  apprenticeships as an alternative to university. Byreaching out to students from London’s most deprived boroughs, and partnering with other organisations to support refugees and young care leavers, 50% of the applicants have claimed free school meals during their school years; 65% are non-white; and 6% are care leavers. 

WhiteHat is transforming apprenticeships by developing high quality education and training that supports the needs of both employers and young people, underpinned by a thriving on and offline community. This will play a vital role in solving the UK’s skills gap, addressing inequalities in pay and opportunity, and challenging wider societal perceptions surrounding apprenticeships and how you access the best careers.

WhiteHat focuses on 3 core areas:

1. Measuring potential beyond academics & work experience through their platform. Candidates create a digital profile, including personality/video profiles, that identifies hidden talent and evidences skills that CVs fail to show. Candidates are intelligently matched with opportunities to which they would be best suited. Better matches mean more apprentices completing apprenticeships, and more employers returning to recruit apprentices.
2. Delivering world-class content via applied learning programmes. They partner with some of the world’s best content providers to ensure they deliver a world class learning experience. WhiteHat’s online platform houses exemplar courses and facilitates peer mentoring, empowering apprentices to talk, rate, and explore learning.
3. Helping a diverse group of young people build social capital & strong networks. They’re powering a social experience for apprentices to rival the relationships students build at university. Bringing apprentices together through events and matching them with mentors helps them develop a fantastic network.

Research highlights the positive impact, both culturally and economically, of building a diverse workforce is comprehensive and robust; yet in industries such as tech, finance, media, and law, individuals from BAME and FSM backgrounds are woefully underrepresented. Companies are aware that this needs to change, but by and large remain unsure of how to access talent from these groups. By encouraging employers in these sectors to take on apprentices, they can start to remedy the problem. WhiteHat is focused on developing future leaders; a generation of people taught via applied learning, with an emphasis on building skills alongside knowledge.

WhiteHat reaches out to students from London’s most deprived boroughs, and partners with other organisations to support refugees and young care leavers. 50% of the applicants that come to WhiteHat have claimed free school meals during their school years; 65% are non-white; and 6% are care leavers.

In the past 12 months the business has grown three times over across all key metrics, including revenues and numbers of employees. As a business, they want to see 35% of all school leavers choose to do an apprenticeship by 2030. The platform lets them reach more diverse young people to meet employer demand and match more efficiently, and the next round of expansion involves national delivery.