For many young people at school or college, having a firm grasp of digital skills sits at the heart of future learning and earning opportunities. But for their teachers, ensuring these skills are used for good is a complicated lesson.

According to The Hacking Games – an organisation dedicated to helping young people with hacking skills get jobs in cybersecurity – criminal gangs are increasingly searching popular online gaming environments for talented teenagers who they can groom into working for them.

It’s a path no educator would want a pupil to go down, which is why Co-op – which sponsors Co-op Academies Trust – has partnered with The Hacking Games. Co-op Academies Trust operates in the north of England, serving more than 20,000 students across 38 primary, secondary and special schools, and one college. Together, Co-op and Co-op Academies Trust aim to steer pupils with coding skills towards careers in “ethical hacking”.

Jo Sykes, director of careers at Co-op Academies Trust, explains: “In recent years, we’ve seen our students become increasingly interested in technology – particularly gaming – and in exploring how these passions could lead to future careers.

“Through our involvement with The Hacking Games, it’s been fascinating to discover the transferable skills between gaming and ethical hacking, especially within the field of cybersecurity. Our students have found this connection both exciting and inspiring.”

“Learning from our involvement with The Hacking Games that there are transferable skills between gaming and ethical hacking in the tech industry, especially cybersecurity, is really fascinating for our students.”

Adam Woodley, head of curriculum at Connell Co-op College, agrees and tells how his youngsters now see jobs in digital as “a very popular choice”.

“Students are developing highly desired skills through hobbies such as gaming and, naturally, they will want to be in a position where they can apply them to a career path which they find exciting,” he says.

“Therefore, it is of great importance they are given opportunities to explore the exciting world of ethical hacking and cybersecurity to utilise those skills to benefit society.”

Rob Elsey, Co-op’s chief digital and information officer, agrees. “There are many unfulfilled roles in cybersecurity,” he says. “The more we can do to turn the smart, skilled young people that we have in the UK to be defenders rather than attackers, and to educate them on the opportunities, the better. This will help us as a nation to face these ongoing threats.”

Driving apprenticeships and internships

Fergus Hay, co-founder of The Hacking Games, says: “It takes a village to inspire, evaluate, and enable this generation to not be bad guys and be good guys.” The Hacking Games’ framework plots youngsters’ digital aptitude and skills against selected criteria and profiles to identify jobs suitable for them in tech.

Plans are now under way by The Hacking Games to create formal routes – apprenticeships and internships – into government or private sector digital roles in the future. Many experts in this field suggest it’s also a career path that can be open for neurodiverse young people. But for both neurodivergent and neurotypical young people, gaming remains a common training ground for hacking, something John Madelin, cybersecurity veteran and chief product officer at The Hacking Games, picks up.

“Every hacker I’ve met is a gamer,” he says, although he is quick to point out that most young gamers don’t have any criminal intent, “the distinction is very clear”. Hacking for many young people in gaming is about finding new hidden ways to experience play in these worlds, although for some it leads into creating and selling cheat codes to other players.

The Hacking Games’ assessment framework matches students’ aptitudes with suitable tech jobs. Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design

These deep technical skills are what the criminal gangs look to exploit, especially among students with less of a focus on academic success. But Madelin says young hackers can be shown another direction. “You’ve got to keep stretching and stimulating them,” he says. “You don’t leave them sitting around doing nothing all day. You harness them.”

Co-op Academies Trust already cites jobs in digital fields as key within its careers programme from primary school onwards. Sykes believes it’s critical to find out what all children excel at as soon as possible. “Our role as educators is to maximise their outcomes in these areas.

“The ones who are strong in digital skills often display a natural inclination for being logical thinkers and creative problem solvers,” she says.

‘Gifted in tech and gaming’

The partnership between Co-op and The Hacking Games came about after Co-op was targeted in a cyber-attack earlier this year. With its focus on delivering societal value, Co-op – an organisation owned by its members, not shareholders – wanted to find ways to tackle the causes of hacking from the ground up.

“We do know children are gifted in tech and gaming, and these skills can potentially lead them into hacking,” says Sykes. “Being able to have these discussions through this programme is going to help us explain the implications and legalities surrounding hacking and help students understand the opportunities these skills can give them through ethical use.”

Potential roles in cybersecurity for big businesses or organisations could include spotting potential flaws that malicious hackers could exploit. Jobs might also be found in government departments to fight hacking attempts by hostile states on critical national infrastructure.

This is one of the key reasons The Hacking Games has recently launched its HAPTAI platform, which helps to build Hacking Aptitude Profiles for young people by analysing a candidate’s performance on popular gaming titles and matching it to their psychometric profile. It then pairs candidates with roles and jobs they’ll excel at and with teams they’ll flourish in.

The partnership with The Hacking Games aims to highlight to children the positive uses of their abilities. Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design

Protection today, a career pathway tomorrow

“Children can be particularly vulnerable to online exploitation, so we make sure they’re educated about these risks – including online safety and the legal boundaries around hacking,” says Sykes. “I think all schools need to stay up-to-date with the issues of the moment, and this is a real opportunity for us to better understand the dangers as professionals and be able to translate this to parents.”

In the future, she would like to see the national computer science curriculum be developed to include ethical hacking, and PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) lessons helping all students become aware of the damage caused by hacking across all economic levels.

Until then, Co-op’s work with The Hacking Games continues. A pilot at Co-op Academy Walkden will be starting in the coming months to raise awareness of the problems, and identify those young people with the right talents to play a part in solving them – before scaling up to a national programme.

“The career opportunities are vast in the digital sector,” says Sykes. “This will eventually support our students to see all the positive pathways available to them and how they can play a key role in making the world a safe place.”

Find out more

Help keep children and young people safe online with Barnardo’s online safety guidance

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