Inspiring more women to get involved in engineering has been an important mission for many involved in the industry throughout the last few years, and we’ve been pleased to see a variety of different news stories over the past month which show that the wide variety of different programmes supporting female engineers are starting to celebrate success.
On the 23rd of June the industry celebrated ‘Women in Engineering Day’, and with it came a lot of fascinating research exploring why women have been put off entering the industry in the past. Crucially, this data also looks at how this can be remedied for the future. One of the key issues has simply been a lack of information; girls who are highly skilled in subjects such as maths typically haven’t been made aware of the opportunities that engineering offers, or been given information about what engineering work actually consists of.
Happily, a variety of companies across the North East are helping to stop this from becoming an ongoing problem, working with schools to ensure that everybody is receiving education about the real life of an engineer – a job which sees people benefit from large salaries and unusually high levels of satisfaction in their work.
Meanwhile, Prince Charles has been to visit a group of primary school girls who have been given the opportunity to experiment with some exciting engineering themed projects – such as building paper rockets – at the Selex ES building. Once again, this was a project that aimed to dispel myths about engineering, and shows how creative and practical it can be for those who pursue it as a career.
And it’s not just the future generations that are feeling the benefits of a drive to bring more women into engineering, as we’ve also seen lots of reports of women currently working in the industry celebrating – including a group from Network Rail, a company that has committed to a goal of increasing female employees from 14% to 30%, mainly by introducing measures such as a women’s staff network. Other UK businesses, such as Niftylift, held events which celebrated the women employed in their own businesses, and also those working in STEM subjects across the world.
The topic of bringing more women into engineering will continue to be relevant for many years to come, but it’s fantastic to see how much progress is being made, and how many people are celebrating the women who have already joined the engineering world. We hope to see more engineers take up the cause in the future, and for those who already work as engineering contractors we can offer our accountancy services to help make the job as stress-free as possible.
Of course, our contractor services are perfect for engineers and IT freelancers regardless of gender! For more details, get in touch with us today on 0800 195 3750 or talk to us on the chat box to discuss your needs with our experienced team.
