A charity for the UK IT sector

The systems never sleep.
Neither do the people who keep them running.

Because nobody should crash alone.

Don't Bluescreen is a new charity dedicated to the mental health and wellbeing of everyone in tech — from the helpdesk and the on-call rota to developers, engineers, leaders and self-employed contractors.

Get involved See why it matters

human.sys

You ran into a problem — and that's completely okay.

You don't need to restart. You don't need to be the hero. We'll collect some support, and we'll get through this together.

Collecting support…100%

If you'd like to talk to someone, you can do that right now.
STOP CODE:

The case for action

The people who keep our systems online are running at 100% load

Mental ill health is now the UK's leading cause of work-related illness. Yet the IT sector — which powers our hospitals, banks and infrastructure — has almost no support built for it.

£0

Annual cost of poor mental health to UK employers

Deloitte, 2024

UK workers with work-related stress, depression or anxiety — the highest ever recorded

HSE, 2025

of software developers report workplace burnout

Haystack / Survation, 2021

£0

lost by UK enterprises each year to cybersecurity burnout

Hack The Box, 2024

Martin Byrne, Founder and Chair of Don't Bluescreen

Why I'm launching a charity

I've been on the other side of the screen.

My name is Martin. I've worked in the UK IT sector for nearly 20 years. I have experienced depression — and there are people I know of, including a close friend, who worked in this industry and lost their lives to mental illness.

Suicide is not inevitable. Depression is treatable. We are all entitled to live happy, healthy lives.

It's time for us to come together for every member of the tech community. Don't Bluescreen exists to make sure that when one of us starts to crash, there's a team ready to respond — in our own language, without judgement, and built around how our industry actually works.

— Martin Byrne, Founder & Chair, Don't Bluescreen

Why IT is different

Generic wellbeing programmes weren't built for life in tech

IT carries pressures that off-the-shelf support simply doesn't understand. These are the forces that quietly wear our people down.

The 24/7 burden

On-call & alert fatigue

Being on-call disrupts sleep and recovery even when the phone never rings. The anticipation alone keeps the nervous system on red alert, night after night.

Always-on

The "hero culture" trap

Firefighting and constant availability get rewarded — normalising unsustainable effort and hiding chronic under-staffing behind the people who keep saving the day.

Imposter syndrome

"Everyone but me knows what they're doing"

In a field that reinvents itself every year, 58% of tech workers feel like frauds. You're not a fraud — you may simply be burnt out and unsupported.

Remote & hybrid

The isolation of the screen

High remote and hybrid working leaves many engineers and contractors without a team around them — and loneliness is a serious risk to mental health.

The manager gap

Leaders who can't see the load

Non-technical managers often can't read the pressure their teams are under — and only about 1 in 4 IT line managers have ever had mental-health training.

Neurodivergent by nature

Brilliant minds, unmet needs

Tech has a high share of neurodivergent talent. Their pattern-recognition and focus are prized — but the environments they work in too rarely accommodate them.

of IT professionals who took stress-related leave hid the real reason

BCS, 2020

6 in 10

digital leaders say their team's mental wellbeing has declined

Nash Squared, 2021

3–0%

of staff are typically reached by a standard Employee Assistance Programme

HCML / Sonder

of tech workers experience imposter syndrome — you're not a fraud, you're burnt out

Blind, 2018

1 in 4

IT line managers have had any mental-health training at all

BCS, 2020

£4.70

returned for every £1 invested in workplace mental health

Deloitte, 2024

Our aims

What we're here to do

Our charitable purpose

To support and promote mental health and reduce the number of lives lost to depression and other mental health conditions within the UK IT sector.

Provide resources

Practical tools that employers and individuals can use to promote wellbeing, prevent problems before they escalate, spot the early warning signs and spread awareness.

Work with partners

Partner with mental-health charities, organisations and public bodies to signpost specialist services — and help fund that support where it's appropriate.

Spread awareness & campaign

Be a voice for the sector. Challenge "hero culture" and alert fatigue, and put IT mental health on the agenda at events, in the media and across the industry.

Deliver direct support

Training, talks, courses and certifications that build healthier workplaces. We don't replace clinical care — we equip people and signpost them to the specialists who do.

GOAL 01

Reduce stress-related absence in IT teams

GOAL 02

Increase access to wellbeing resources and support

GOAL 03

Create an industry standard for healthy tech workplaces

GOAL 04

Help save lives by reducing suicide risk through awareness

Who we're here for

Helpdesk & support technicians Developers & software engineers MSP & vendor staff Cybersecurity teams Self-employed contractors IT owners, directors & leaders …and the wider public, where our aims overlap

Our approach

Mental Health Incident Response

We speak IT. So we've built a wellbeing framework that mirrors how good teams already handle a major incident — practical, relatable and action-oriented.

Monitor

"If we monitor systems for faults, we should monitor people for stress."

Regular wellbeing check-ins and training to recognise the early warning signs.

Prevent

"Prevention is cheaper than a rebuild."

Balanced workloads, mental-health days and genuinely flexible working.

Respond

"A well-run incident saves systems — and people."

A clear plan when someone's struggling: Acknowledge, Assess, Assist, Act.

Recover

"After a crash, we learn from the logs."

The "Kernel Dump" — guided reflection and a gentle, gradual return.

Improve

"Patch management for people."

Review what we do every year and share what works across the sector.

When someone's in the red:

1. Acknowledge 2. Assess 3. Assist 4. Act

What we'll do

Support designed for how tech actually works

As we launch, these are the programmes we're building — practical, sector-specific and grounded in the evidence.

Manager training

Managing the Human Stack

IT-literate training that turns recognised standards into the realities of on-call rotas, incident response and deployment crunch — for the managers whose teams need them most.

Community

Confidential peer support

IT-literate peer networks where people can talk to others who get it — especially the isolated remote workers and contractors who have no employer support at all.

In development

Accreditation

"DBS Mental Health Ready"

A kitemark for IT employers, aligned to recognised psychosocial-safety standards — giving the sector the specialist benchmark it currently lacks.

Awareness

Campaigns & early intervention

Destigmatising help-seeking so people reach out sooner — because nearly half who take stress-related leave still feel they have to hide the real reason.

Underserved

Contractors & SMEs first

Self-employed contractors and small-team staff carry elevated risk and have the least access to support. We're prioritising the people most often left out.

Evidence

A "State of IT Mental Health" study

The best UK data is now years old. We intend to commission a fresh, annual study so the whole sector finally has numbers it can act on.

Get involved

We're just getting off the ground — and we need you

Don't Bluescreen is being established right now. Here's how you can help us launch.

Become a trustee

We're looking for people from IT, MSPs, HR, governance or mental-health advocacy who can give a little time each month to help guide our strategy and get us launched.

Express your interest

Become a founding partner

Vendors, MSPs and employers can help us build sector-specific programmes from day one — and show the industry they take their people seriously.

Talk to us

We're not yet able to accept public donations — but we'd love to talk to founding supporters.

Share our story

The simplest thing you can do today: tell a colleague or friend in tech that we exist, and follow us as we grow. Awareness saves lives.

Share by email

When one of us starts to crash, there should always be a team ready to respond.

Join us in building a healthier, more sustainable IT industry — one where looking after the human stack matters as much as keeping the systems online.

Get involved Contact us