GOLD Coast has opened two development coaching scholarships for women ahead of the 2022 NAB AFLW season.

Applicants must come from the club's catchment regions of Gold Coast, Northern Rivers, north Queensland and the Northern Territory.

"Over the past couple of years, we've found it's quite a big jump from community football to AFLW level," Gold Coast head of women's footy Fiona Sessarago told womens.afl.

"We thought the ability to work with the coaches and provide support (and experience) around things they don't get at local level, like access to vision and stats, would be really beneficial to help develop coaches.

"It's not just for our benefit for the future, but also for our academies and state league competition as well."

Sessarago has been heavily involved in Queensland football as a player, coach and administrator long before her time at the Suns, and is well aware of the variety of factors in the relatively low number of women coaching.

"I think it's a whole combination of different things. Confidence is a little part, sometimes if females may not have played themselves, they won't have that confidence," she said.

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"You might have seen through the promotion of the scholarship, we're actually encouraging applicants from other sports, because we think those skills are transferrable.

"A lot of the females who I think will be good coaches are still playing, we've got a few of our AFLW players coaching in our academy pathways and in other programs too. We think once they finish playing, they'll be really good coaches.

"One thing I've found with the women I played with and talk to about coaching, they've either got young families or they're focused on their career, so finding the time is really difficult for them as well."

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Successful applicants have the opportunity to opt for working with the Suns for one session a week, or the equivalent time frame in one intensive period.

"The flexibility is important, whether it's for family reasons or employment," Sessarago said.

"We've had applications already from northern Queensland and the Northern Territory as well, so to make it feasible for them to be involved, it was important we offered the option of a chunk of time (rather than weekly)."

New Gold Coast coach Cameron Joyce has spent time in Victoria (head of football at North Melbourne) and Tasmania (state talent manager) in the past few years and has seen the tide slowly turn, but is eager to help increase numbers.

"Certainly, a bit's been said recently around [the number of female coaches], and it would be a great part of my role here at the Gold Coast Suns to develop the next female assistant or hopefully AFLW coach," Joyce said.

"It was certainly something I spoke to the club about when I got the role, because I saw the benefit of female coaches on the coaching panel as part of my previous experiences.

"There's three or four components to the role, they'll get their level two coaching accreditation, there'll be some match day involvement and then a pretty detailed development plan for them.

"Much has obviously been talked about potentially not having enough opportunities or having enough female coaches in the competition, and we certainly want to do something about that to help them grow and develop."

Applications for the coaching scholarship can be made through the Suns' website and close Friday, October 8.