Tomorrow is ‘National Women in Engineering Day’ and companies from across the profession will be coming together in support of initiatives that champion the role of females in the sector and encourage more young girls to consider an engineering career.

 

Among the companies taking part is Ringway Jacobs, working with Cheshire East Council, which is helping young women to develop careers through apprenticeships and graduate training programmes. It will be taking to Twitter tomorrow using its @cechighways account to promote the range of engineering roles on offer to women.

 

Over the last four years 19 apprentices have been recruited by the company in Cheshire East, several of whom have signed up to become members of CIHT to help further their ambitions.

 

“Forty percent of staff here are women and we are keen to promote the many pathways on offer and highlight opportunities for females,” said communications manager Katie Lennie.

 

Contract director Chris Shields added: “We have a very healthy succession plan in place and around 15% of our staff are apprentices, who we rotate through the business so they can get a broad appreciation of the range of roles on offer.”

 

Elsewhere, the consultant AECOM warns that the gap between the number of male and female apprentices in engineering and manufacturing is growing, with the number of women taking up apprenticeships in decline since 2012.

 

It said that a significant gender imbalance at apprenticeship level risks undermining efforts to build a more diverse workforce – and the imbalance could persist for another generation.

 

“Urgent, positive action is required to correct years of unintended gender bias in the industry,” said the consultant’s strategic planning and advisory director Kate Morris. “As an industry, we must apply our problem-solving skills to tackle the lack of awareness and interest in engineering among emerging female talent.

 

One route AECOM is exploring is targeting female talent from less socially mobile categories who may not want to – or be able to afford to – go to university, with the aim of encouraging them to consider an engineering apprenticeship.

 

WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff graduate engineer Patricia Molina Benitez said the way the industry markets itself could be improved to attract and retain more women. “In civil engineering we have a tendency to only show construction sites in marketing materials, even though many of us spend most of our week in an office. There are many more opportunities in engineering and we need to focus on this if we are to attract a more diverse range of people into the profession.”

 

Patricia added that more effort needs to be directed towards updating the views of teachers and parents who influence young people.

 

“I also believe that when looking at attracting a more diverse range of young people into our industry we shouldn’t just be telling them how good civil or any single engineering discipline is, we should tell them how great engineering is full stop. We just need that spark, that one thing that will make them look into engineering further.”

 

(Photo: Network Rail)