Our very first cohort of women
At TechPixies we recognise that women require confidence in order to return to work, change careers, or start a business.
We believe one of the best ways to gain confidence and therefore choice over your future is through coaching and training.
The Problem We Are Solving
TechPixies published The Confidence Gap Report which reveals the truth about women going back to work after a career break. We asked 1000 working women what impact time out of the workplace had on their career. It is clear that there is work to be done across three main areas: Confidence, Earning Power and Job Satisfaction.
24%
of women feel that lack of confidence is their greatest stumbling block when returning to work
42%
of women returning to work earn less than they did before they took a career break
46%
of women describe their work as simply a ‘means to an end’ and one in ten describe their work as beneath their ability
The Story So Far
⭐ 2024-2025 Stabilisation and Strength
March 2025 marked 9 years since our very first cohort of 12 women graduated from their programme. Since then, we have hit several milestones:
- We have helped over 16,000 women get started on social media and introduced a brand new 21 Day Social Media Confidence Challenge.
- More than 1,000 of those women have gone on to do one of our paid social media training programmes such as our Social Media Mastery programme. You can find out more via our free Social Media Masterclass.
- Our Career Interrupted podcast has had over 130,000 downloads.
- We introduced a brand new 12 Day Design Your Dream Life Challenge which emphasises the importance of creating a vision for your life and not just living by design.
- Our Business Beyond Social programme entered into it’s 3rd year. To find out more about our business programme, watch our Business Masterclass.
⭐ 2022-2023 We introduced a life coaching programme and added business coaching to our portfolio and had our first breakeven year!
In 2022, we recognised that some women needed additional coaching and support that wasn’t tech-related, but that would still help them grow in confidence. We added free regular Vision Workshops to our calendar in between our Social Media Superhero Bootcamps. To date, more than 1,000 women have attended our vision workshops and more than 14,000 women have attended our social media bootcamps. Over 1000 women have gone on to do either our Social Media Management Certification or our DreamBuilder programme – some have done both!
With so many alumni having completed our social media management certification and seeing progress on social media, we created a new programme called Business Beyond Social which helps women understand additional elements of running a business. Similar to our social media training programme, all of the Business Beyond Social coaches are graduates of our programmes who’ve developed expertise in a range of specialities including communications, branding, design, operations, paid advertising, finances and launching. This programme now has 28 participants and has shown some very promising results.
The biggest accomplishment from a social enterprise standpoint came in 2023, when we broke even as a company. In 2023, TechPixies had no additional investment or social loans and we were able to cover all of our costs with our own revenue. This was a major milestone that we look forward to building on in 2024. We also managed to snag a couple of awards including the 2022 FDM Women in Tech Entrepreneur of the Year award, Digital Women’s 2022 Women’s Champion Award, AND the 2023 Brave Thinking Institute Outstanding Impact Award.
⭐ 2020-2021 We won ‘Digital Course of the Year’, launched a book club and our PROGRESSION Membership
In March 2020, TechPixies was awarded ‘Digital Course of the Year’ by Digital Women and in May 2020 was recognised by We Are The City as a Rising Star. During the COVID lockdown, we ran a free training programme which more than 4,000 women signed up to and as a result were featured in The Times. We also launched the Joy Book Club, our Social Media Superhero Bootcamp and a follow on membership to our Social Media Magic Course called PROGRESSION. PROGRESSION is all about helping women who have completed the Social Media Magic Course to set 90-day goals and progress towards them with extra coaching and peer-led learning and support.
⭐ 2018-2019 We expanded our TechPixies reach by making our courses available online and became CPD members!
In 2018, TechPixies raised £150k of female-led investment and in doing so we were able to move the full TechPixies programme online. In the spring of 2019, we launched our fully revamped online-only signature course Social Media Magic. In 2018, TechPixies won a suite of awards including Women in Business Startup of the Year 2018, the IoD Startup Director of Year for London and the South. TechPixies Founder Joy Foster was named to Grant Thornton’s 100 Faces of the Vibrant Economy.
⭐ 2016-2017 Crowdfunding, a visit from the Prime Minister and our first major award!
We became a Limited Company and we won an UnLtd ‘Grow it’ Award. We also ran a successful Crowdfunding Campaign and received a special visit from the Prime Minister, Theresa May. Our crowning achievement was being named Enterprise Nation’s Female Startup of the Year 2017. Our founder, Joy Foster, was the highly commended ‘Women’s Champion’ at the Social Enterprise UK Awards.
⭐ 2015 We launched our Pilot Face to Face Project in Oxford
TechPixies launched in 2015 as a pilot project funded by Better Broadband for Oxfordshire and the Oxfordshire County Council who distributed a Government Equalities fund with an aim of helping women return to work with improved tech skills. We initially worked with 12 women, and had wild success with all 12 women returning to work or launching a business in some capacity following the pilot.
Who is Joy Foster?
Joy Foster is the founder and CEO of TechPixies, a multi-award-winning, CPD-certified social media training company that has helped 16,000+ women across the UK start the journey of upskilling with social media in order to return to work, change careers, or start a business so that they can become financially independent. TechPixies has generated over £2 million in revenue and has provided £300k worth of scholarships to women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as those who are BAME, LGBTQ+ and 60+.
Since launching TechPixies in 2015, Joy has been recognised internationally for her work, winning the Brave Thinking Institute’s Outstanding Impact Award in 2023 and the Entrepreneur Award at the FDM everywoman in Technology Awards 2022. Joy was also named Women’s Champion by Digital Women at its 2022 Awards and made the longlist for Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK Tech for the fourth year running.
Joy is a keen sportsperson and was a member of the US Archery Team from 2004 to 2007. She has run three marathons (and raised thousands for charity in the process), competed in Ironman Wales 2019 and won a Gold Medal at Henley Women’s Regatta in 2001.
Joy is a mum of two and enjoys coaching U15 football at Donnington Football Club and J12 at Headington School. In 2022, the U12s Donnington Red Pandas won their Division in their league and in 2025, the U15 Donnington Phoenix were league runner ups, under her guidance. Her husband is Tim Foster MBE, winner of a gold medal in the Men’s Coxless Four Rowing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. The Fosters live in Oxford, England, with their Russian blue cat, Asteroid, and their golden retriever, Everest.
TechPixies Core Values
The values embraced by TechPixies can be found in the word SPARKLE
SPAR = Supportive, positive, authentic relationships (with women)
KL = (who are) Keen to Learn
E = (and want to be) Empowered
Supportive, positive, authentic relationships mean that we care personally about every woman who comes through our courses. They are not just a number or a sale, they are real women with real lives and concerns and hopes and fears about their futures. That doesn’t mean that we are right for everyone, but that we treat everyone with respect.
SUPPORTIVE: We are there to support, but not solve problems, we rely on life coaching to help empower women to come up with their own solutions.
POSITIVE: We maintain a positive persona in our teaching and in our groups. If/when we struggle with maintaining positivity, life coaching is often a solution. TechPixies acknowledges that being positive is harder than being negative and so it is important to address personal circumstances and or concerns internally or externally that may be causing negativity with our own team as well as the women going through our programmes.
AUTHENTIC: We are real, and honest and willing to tell the truth and challenge things we don’t agree with if it is not done in a harmful way. There is no room for pretence or ego or inauthenticity. This may also mean that some women (students or staff) don’t feel comfortable as a part of TechPixies and that is ok, we wish them well and will always endeavour to sign post them appropriately.
KEEN TO LEARN: Our team, our and our clients/students are all keen to learn and regularly invest in themselves.
EMPOWERING: Our courses empower women to embrace modern technology and take control of their own decisions/actions which affect their future. We aim to empower women to have a better sense of self worth, both personally and financially and help them visualise and then create a brighter future for themselves and their families (if applicable).
Learn with TechPixies
At TechPixies, we help women thrive… on social media, in life, and in business. We have 3 programmes that help midlife women move forwards:
Social Media Mastery
Social Media is a brilliant skill for midlife women to learn. It helps to build confidence in a digital skillset as well as building personal confidence. Many of the women who complete our Social Media Mastery programme get part-time, flexible work as social media managers. Many of them use their social media skills to do social media for their own businesses or to add social media to their existing skillset so they can enhance their offering. You can find out more about our Social Media programme by watching our Social Media Masterclass or get started with our 21 Day Social Media Confidence Challenge.
DreamBuilder VIP & Life Mastery Programmes
A lot of women we work with are facing all sorts of challenges midlife – maybe it is divorce, bereavement, redundancy, caring responsibilities for children, teens, young adults or elderly parents. They may also be dealing with perimenopausal or post-menopausal symptoms as well as health challenges like breast cancer. Our DreamBuilder VIP and Life Mastery programmes are designed to help women get clarity on their vision and take action steps towards a life they would love. It all starts with our 12 Day Design Your Dream Life Challenge.
Business Beyond Social
Building a business is about more than just having a product or a service, you’ve got to get that product or service out into the world. In our Business Beyond Social programme, we teach 3 key steps to help women reach their target audience and then make an offer to that audience. We teach our evergreen ads formula in this programme, showing you how to set up ads that generate leads year round. Something I wish I’d learned earlier in my journey! A great place to start if you want to attract more clients into your business is our Free Business Masterclass.