Last week, The Herald newspaper in Scotland reported J.P. Morgan’s success in attracting an increasing proportion of female software engineers.

Since the launch of a drive to attract more women into the software engineering operation last year, there has been a rise from 18% to 21% of female workers in that field. And among the graduate recruits who joined the two-year training program, the proportion has risen to a never-before-seen 34%. Those figures put J.P. Morgan’s operations in Glasgow well ahead of the Scottish national average of 15% and the British average of 18% for women in IT roles.

The drive was initiated by Isobel McFarlane, business-aligned location manager for Banking and Research, GCCG & Offshore Services, along with her 12-strong team, locally known as the SODA group (Supporting Opportunities and Diversity for All). “The project is in line with J.P. Morgan’s general policy on diversity,” she says.

Isobel’s drive does not focus exclusively on the entry level but also looks at ways of encouraging women back to IT careers after breaks – usually to bring up children. It also looks at retention of employees, such as enticing women back to work after maternity leave by offering part-time or flexible work arrangements. And it works: Over the past couple of years, every single woman who left the ETC on maternity leave returned to the ETC -- an amazing result that reflects well on the firm’s operations in the largest Scottish city.

“The European Technology Centre workforce is set to rise from 750 to 850 by year-end,” says Paul Murphy, chief executive officer of J.P. Morgan in Scotland. “Under current plans, the total workforce could eventually rise to 900. This growth can be attributed to the successful and booming investment banking business and the quality of people working at the Glasgow operation.”

To achieve that level of quality, Murphy insists that J.P. Morgan needs to attract more female employees to ensure the workforce is as diverse as possible. He also highlighted the importance of dispelling any perception among potential recruits that IT was a less appealing career after the dot.com bust as well as the view that technology isn’t all about “sitting in front of a computer doing spreadsheets.”