Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Recruitment at Trust in SODA

Imagine how limited (and boring) hiring would be if everyone saw the world the same way. 

When a hiring process is built to find candidates in the same old places, it tends to lead to the same old problems: shallow talent pools, homogenised thinking, and products without a clear view of the people they're made for. 

Treating DEI as part of your recruitment infrastructure is a proven remedy. It moves your hiring output from short-term recruitment activity to true workforce development. 

This includes how people are discovered, how talent is assessed, and how the environment you create retains and grows your teams. 

Since 2010, Trust in SODA has worked with businesses to build access to talent beyond the usual channels.

We partner across the full hiring lifecycle, with diversity, equity and inclusion built into each stage, from access and assessment through to candidate experience and retention.

The result is better conversations, stronger alignment, and more effective shortlists.

For employers building software, cloud, platform, data, and engineering teams, that means access to people who wouldn’t appear through traditional channels, and a greater chance of finding those who genuinely fit the role.

Curious as to what this might look like for your business?

Speak to a consultant

Our Inclusive Hiring Framework

The challenge with building more diverse technology teams isn’t intent. Most organisations already recognise the value of broader perspectives across engineering and data functions.

The issue is how access to talent is shaped long before a role is ever defined, influenced by visibility, progression pathways, community, and who is supported to enter and stay within the industry.

Take gender diversity in engineering as one example. Trust in SODA’s Talent Insights show that:

• 16% of Platform Engineers are women
• 18% of DevOps Engineers are women
• 21% of Cloud Engineers are women
• 24% of Software Engineers are women
• 28% of Data Engineers are women

These figures reflect how opportunity is distributed across the market. When access is limited, hiring outcomes follow.

For employers, this creates a clear commercial challenge: building effective, resilient teams requires expanding access to talent beyond what is immediately visible.

We work closely with our clients to strengthen how hiring functions day to day, shaping processes, supporting hiring managers, and providing clear insight into how talent markets are evolving across locations.

That includes sharing competitor trends, talent movement, and practical guidance that improves decision-making at every stage of the hiring process. Over time, this creates more consistent, repeatable ways of hiring, reducing reliance on reactive approaches and improving the quality of outcomes.

Alongside this, our position in the market enables access to passive, highly engaged talent, particularly within underrepresented groups, who are unlikely to be reached through traditional channels. The result is a hiring approach that delivers in the moment and continues to perform as teams grow.

We're here to help businesses change for the better, and that starts with our own. 

At Trust in SODA, diversity, equity and inclusion is a core business metric, with clear accountability and transparency around how we measure progress.

We publish our performance through annual impact reporting and continue to invest in the people, training, and infrastructure that support long-term development. We track progress, publish it through our annual impact reporting, and invest in the people, training, and infrastructure that support long-term development.

That focus shapes how our teams work, how we engage talent, and how we support our clients.

It’s also what led to our Investors in People Platinum accreditation, a standard achieved by only 7% of all assessed organisations, recognising a consistent commitment to people, performance, and progression.

Read our Impact Report