This International Women’s Day, Business Intelligence Developer, Shameem Kosar, hopes for a future where more women work in IT and data.
Business Intelligence Developer, Shameem Kosar is passionate about how her role in analysing data can improve decision-making and business processes at ForHousing, which owns and manages 24,000 homes across the North West.
The mother-of-four from Lancashire wholeheartedly believes that her role can help create better experiences for tenants, and teams across the organisation and hopes that more women will join her by working in data.
“At ForHousing we’re passionate about putting tenants at the heart of all we do. Data helps us make sure their homes are well-maintained and are places where tenants can feel happy and safe. We’re already putting so much in place, but there is always more we can do. I find Forhousing an inclusive and welcoming place to work and I feel privileged to be a part of this.”
Shameem, who has worked for the landlord since October 2022, is also keen to see more women choose data as a career at a time when the demand for data and analytical skills continues to increase.
Now in her early 50s, Shameem spent her younger years in her native Pakistan before moving to the UK aged 12 with her mother and three siblings in the 1980s to join their father. After finishing school, she studied Computing at the University of Huddersfield.
“I’ve always enjoyed working in IT, in particular managing information systems and working with various databases and I saw a lot of potential. I’ve since discovered how much variety there is – you can do so much with data.”
“For instance, at ForHousing, we turn all the data we have on the homes, repairs, and tenants into something understandable for our colleagues – whether that’s a dashboard to help with decision making, insights that help improve tenant services or creating cost efficiencies.”
Shameem knows what it can be like to come back to work after a long period away. She took eight years out of work to bring up her children and look after her parents. On her return to the workforce in 2019, she knew she would have a lot to catch up on skill-wise. She thinks more help is needed for women re-entering the workforce.
She considers herself as having had a positive experience, joining a supportive team in the NHS, albeit at a more junior level than where she left off.
But she knows that’s not the case for all women.
Shameem says she would love to see more diverse representation of people working in IT and data. “I’m the only ethnic female BI Developer in my team, which was the same in my previous job, and my previous job before that!”
“I’d love to see a better structure in place that encourages young women and girls to go into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) related jobs.
“There’s a huge demand for these skills, we need them more day by day. Jobs in IT are just as worthy as other popular professions taken up by women – the more information we have, the better decisions we can make, which can ultimately change lives”.
“Young women and people from more diverse backgrounds need to be able to see that these jobs exist. There needs to be role models and people to talk to, because it might be something they just didn’t know was possible for them. This needs to be implemented from school age onwards.
“That’s why I think International Women’s Day is so important as it celebrates the amazing work women do and hopefully will help encourage more women into male-dominated sectors.”
