Beckie Taylor, public speaker and founder of Tech Returners, is creating a six-part documentary series called Breaking the sound barrier – voices unleashed, following the journeys of 10 women in technology as they learn skills in public speaking.
The Sound Barrier programme the documentary follows is helping participants build confidence and “find their voices”, and each woman will be part of an event where they will publicly deliver a talk to share their stories for the first time at the end of the programme.
The documentary following the participants will be a rare opportunity to see the time, effort and challenges facing influential people, according to Taylor, who pointed out that many focus on the role model in front of them without taking into account the journey they took to the top.
Taylor said: “If I look at younger Beckie growing up, I didn’t think I would stand in front of hundreds of people to talk about my experiences or be classed as a professional public speaker.”
She admitted her early speaking opportunities consisted of “knees knocking [and] gripping onto a lectern”, adding: “I think what people see now is [the Beckie who is] confident, able to articulate herself and able to engage audiences – but what people don’t see is the journey.”
Many in the technology sector believe giving young people, particularly girls, access to visible and accessible role models will encourage them to pursue careers in the tech sector, but there is often a large gap between these young people and their role models, leaving these positions feeling unobtainable.
“We need to be focused on the real women in tech,” Taylor said. “It’s great to have the big role models – CEOs of big corporate companies – [but] what I’m trying to capture from the whole documentary is to really be relatable to people. There needs to be more real-life tech influencers showing the reality of an industry that’s growing rapidly and has so many amazing opportunities.”
The current diversity in tech landscape is “depressing”, said Taylor, which has pushed her “more than ever” to highlight female talent in the sector, adding: “It’s still such an important thing to push and it really does need pushing more than ever.”
A recent report found that thousands of women are leaving their technology roles each year, and in many cases claimed their career paths have not gone as they expected them to, or that they have struggled to make it into higher roles.
Taylor said women lose the confidence to have an opinion after a certain point, or to share the ones they do have, which is why she chose to help those taking part in The Sound Barrier programme to learn public speaking skills – to “share women’s voices” in a time where DEI conversations are being “suppressed”.
“Rather than women saying, ‘I will never do that because I’m too scared. Who would want to listen to me?’, I want women to understand that everybody has a story, and you will be relatable to people if you share the story” said Taylor.
The programme is currently self-funded by Taylor, who is hoping to find sponsorship to continue running the programme in the future.
The first cohort will be presenting on 11 November 2025 at an event in Manchester, with the documentary airing in 2026.
