Breaking the silence: men’s mental health in the tech world

I was on a panel at the East of England Power Platform Summit talking about men’s mental health in tech. It’s a topic that does not get nearly enough airtime at our events, and I’m glad someone made the room for it.

Here’s what we covered, in my own words.

Tech moves fast, and people get lost in the noise

The industry runs at a hundred miles an hour. Tight deadlines, demanding clients, high expectations. Underneath all of that, there is a quieter struggle that rarely surfaces: men’s mental health.

General conversations about wellbeing have come a long way. Workplaces have not all caught up. A lot of men still worry that opening up makes them look weak or incapable, so they don’t. We talked about why that’s still the case, and what we can actually do about it.

Remote work, and the commute we didn’t realise we needed

Remote work has been brilliant in a lot of ways. It has also made it much easier to hide. In an office, you can usually spot the colleague who’s having a rough day. On a video call, camera off, you can’t.

The other thing we lost is the commute. That drive or train ride home used to be a decompression zone. An hour to shift from “work brain” to “home brain”. Now the commute is a walk to the kitchen, and people are landing in family life still wound up from a tough call.

One thing some teams are trying is a “virtual office”. An open video call, no agenda, where people can sit and work quietly or chat about nothing in particular. It rebuilds those small, organic connections that make it easier, weeks later, to say “actually, I’m having a bad week”.

Neurodiversity and the sting of feedback

For people in tech with ADHD or autism, mental health is often tangled up with things like Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. Routine feedback can land as a personal attack, even when it isn’t meant that way. The result is a shutdown that nobody wants.

A simple thing that helps: a “how to work with me” document. Each person writes down how they prefer to get feedback, how they communicate, what trips them up. It takes the guesswork out of it for managers, and it cuts a lot of unnecessary anxiety on the other side.

A small reframe in feedback also goes a long way. Moving from “here’s what went wrong” to “how do we make this even better” sounds soft, but it changes the whole shape of the conversation.

Safe spaces, and leaders who go first

Culture changes when leaders are willing to be vulnerable first. When a manager admits they are burnt out, or wrestling with imposter syndrome, or just having a grim week, it gives everyone else permission to be human too.

Outside of work, groups like Andy’s Man Club are doing brilliant work. The cliché is that men only connect over beer and football. The reality, when you give them a non-judgemental room and a cup of tea, is that they want to talk. About work, about home, about the lot of it.

How I felt afterwards

I’ll be honest. I had been buzzing all day. Catching up with people, enjoying the sessions, in a good headspace. The panel itself was great, and I’m proud of how the conversation went. But it took it out of me in a way I wasn’t quite expecting.

Talking openly about this stuff, in front of a room, costs something. Not in a bad way. Just in a “I’m going to need a quiet evening” way. I’m fine now, and I’d absolutely do it again. But it’s worth flagging, because I think it’s part of the honest picture. Sharing this work is still work.

A question for the community

We are all human, and it is genuinely okay to not be okay. The more we talk, listen properly, and stop performing, the better the culture gets.

So here’s my question, and I’d love your honest answer.

Is there space for more sessions like this at other Power Platform events? Not as a tick-box wellness slot, but as a proper conversation, on the main programme, with people who’ll be real about it.

If you’d want to see one at your local user group, summit, or conference, tell me. If you’d want to be on one, tell me that too. The more of us who say it out loud, the easier it becomes to make it happen.