Sunday marks International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) – a day that has been celebrated for over ten years, and yet we’ve recently seen a drop in the percentage of women in the sector (16.5% down to 15.7%). This is unacceptable.
Society depends on the skills and knowledge of engineers. Without diversity in the profession, we’re hampering efforts to solve complex global problems we face. Work is being done across the sector, supported by organisations like the IET, WISE and other professional institutions, but there is still a lot to do – it requires action, it requires consistency, and it requires commitment.
UK Science and Engineering organisations should be banging on our doors to find out how best to improve gender parity – and diversity more generally. It’s not only good for business – innovation, creativity, and collaboration – but it’s good for society and the economy.
We know that systemic and institutional barriers exist, and there are many reports on discrimination, exclusionary practices and processes, but it’s important that we now act to change this and remove these so that everyone feels included and can succeed.
What perplexes me most about this is that it doesn’t need to be this way. The variety of creative and stimulating careers available to women in the sector is vast – engineers today are working on everything from healthcare technology that can combat some of the world’s most prevalent diseases, to designing the space vehicle for the next mission to Mars. Take our cohort of Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award winners and finalists – outstanding young women up and down the country who are engineering a better world for us all.
So how do we do better?
We must inspire the next generation of women engineers and promote future careers in technology, and this starts from a very young age. We need to be telling primary school children, particularly girls, about the opportunities and range of careers within science, engineering and technology.
We know that engineering has a perception problem, so with young girls learning about engineering from an early age during their education, they will have a better understanding of how vast and exciting the industry is, with the knowledge of what engineers really do and the limitless opportunities available to them in the sector.
We need organisations to be absolutely committed to making a difference, ensuring diversity, inclusion and accessibility is embedded in everything that they do.
We need to be retaining diverse talent. Our 2021 Skills Survey report showed that just over 3 in 10 organisations have taken action to improve diversity of their engineering and/or technical workforce across gender (33%) or ethnicity (30%) – we must access all talent to resolve the skills shortage, and ultimately engineer a better world.
Visibility and representation matters, therefore we need to be providing real life role models for the younger generation to look to and to tell them first-hand about their experiences and how to get into the sector.
With 51% of the population being women, we have a huge opportunity to tap into this talent pool. Engineers develop products and services for everyone so we must ensure diversity of thought and innovation in order to create inclusive solutions that work for us all.
Currently we are failing society. We must act.
Dr Laura Norton is IET Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Managing Director at WISE
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