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The numbers paint a picture of an industry beginning to exhaust its approach to encouraging female engineering talent to either enter, or re-enter UK manufacturing and engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2018, respondents were asked what they thought needed to be done to encourage women to consider engineering or manufacturing as a career. Just 7% said they thought that enough had been done; but for 2019, this figure has leapt to 56%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking at the potential methods to encourage this choice of career, greater transparency around pay was the number one tactic (according to 81%) \u2013 another huge leap from the 2018 figure of 39%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, Subcon is celebrating 100 years of the Women\u2019s Engineering Society (WES). As part of the celebration, WES will be exhibiting at the event and the morning of the 6th will be dedicated to the need to improve UK engineering\u2019s gender balance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The content will be curated by WES. Speakers will include WES CEO Elizabeth Donnelly, and Jan Peters, MD of Katalytik. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to WES, there are approximately 20,000 qualified female engineers that could be enticed to return to the sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked how this could be achieved, respondents to the survey identified flexible work patterns as the main tactic (consistent with 2018) with tax incentives\/childcare vouchers and return to work programmes equally popular as second choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Campaigns to get more women into engineering have been more visible and there may be a sense that the job is done,\u201d said Elizabeth Donnelly, CEO, Women\u2019s Engineering Society. \u201cHowever, it takes years to build a pipeline of women in engineering and we must keep pushing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I went to university in the late 1980s, there would be one or two women studying for an engineering degree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese women are just now beginning to take senior roles because it takes up to 30 years to get to the right stage in a career \u2013 we have just seen Air Marshall Susan Gray become the highest ranked woman in the military ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd if women took career breaks it will take a little longer. So, we are seeing a few women reaching the top of engineering, with more women coming through below. It\u2019s still not enough, barely 12% of all engineers are women, so we need to keep attracting women into engineering.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGetting more women into engineering, or in many cases, back into engineering remains a tough nut for the industry to crack,\u201d said Gordon Kirk, event director, Subcon. \u201cIt seems there has been little change in ideas of how women can be encouraged into the industry, but these figures suggest that perhaps the appetite amongst businesses has shifted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is clearly a massive realisation of the need for pay transparency. These should provide very interesting contexts for our partnership with the Women\u2019s Engineering Society this year as we celebrate the contribution to industry made by women throughout UK manufacturing and engineering.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subcon research was carried out February 2019 among 344 respondents in the UK engineering and manufacturing community, via online survey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There has been a massive leap in businesses that believe no more needs to be done to encourage women to consider manufacturing as a career . That is according to research carried out by Subcon, \u2013 UK’s premier manufacturing supply chain show, which returns 4th-6th June 2019 at the NEC, Birmingham. “Campaigns to get more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3007,4576,1730,6068,4534,2309,6069],"class_list":["post-11793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-process","tag-stem","tag-subcon","tag-supply-chain","tag-uk-engineering","tag-wes","tag-women","tag-womens-engineering-society"],"yoast_head":"\n