Wednesday 23rd June 2021 marks ‘International Women in Engineering Day’ and an opportunity to celebrate the amazing work that women engineers around the world are doing.
However, there is still a long way to go in terms of working towards gender equality in the engineering profession. In our blog back in March coinciding with International Women’s Day, we detailed some statistics that highlight the true scale of gender disparity currently found within the industry. According to the Women’s Engineering Society, only 12% of engineers in Britain are female and only 1% of engineering and technology undergraduates in the UK are female. In addition to this, in the Engineering UK 2020 report last year, research found that in the 9 years leading up to the academic year 2018 to 2019, the proportion of engineering and technology entrants who were female increased by just 5 percentage points and if trends continue at the same rate, gender equality will not be attained on these courses for another 3 decades.
This clearly demonstrates that in the UK we have a long way to go and work to do in not only encouraging more female students to study towards STEM subjects but also in raising awareness of the career opportunities within the engineering professions and removing the barriers to entering and progressing within the sector.
At Scantec we specialise in recruiting across a range of technical, engineering and scientific sectors; industries that are traditionally male dominated and with under-representation of women. While no one organisation or campaign can reach everyone, as a business we are committed to promoting ED&I and advocate the development of a more gender-equal profession as well as the goal of supporting women in engineering to fulfil their potential and supporting the engineering industry to be inclusive.
It is key that organisations, industry leaders, individuals and ‘men as allies’ work collectively to break down stereotypes, promote the fantastic career opportunities within the engineering sector and provide a true picture of the potential within 21st century engineering in order to attract the diverse new talent the industry needs to thrive.
So today we’d ask everyone to join us in celebrating the best, brightest and boldest women in engineering who inspire others to embark on careers in the industry, but also to promote and support gender equality in the engineering sector, not just for today but every day.
#INWED21 #EngineeringHeroes #internationalwomeninengineeringday #scantec #ED&I #inclusiverecruitment
