09 August 2019

Gender gap in engineering; changing for good?

A recent article in The Guardian revealed that the attitudes towards women within the engineering sector are changing and the future looks bright for young female engineers looking to progress within this sector.

In the past, engineering has been dominated by men, with only a small percentage of young women considering or pursuing a career in engineering related subjects. This has caused a skills gap and a reduction in new talent and diversity, which is vital to maintaining economic growth and stability. Within the UK, only 12.3% of all engineers are women, but why is this the case?

Elizabeth Donnelly, CEO of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), suggests that this figure is caused by the ‘bias’ and ‘misconception’ of the media and the way young girls are dissuaded from ‘getting their hands dirty and fixing things’. Despite this, girls at A-level studying STEM subjects outperform boys and this continues at degree level.

However, this is not going unnoticed, and considerable efforts are being made to reduce the gender gap, making a future career in engineering more exciting than ever for women. There is good news when it comes to pay too, with graduates entering an occupation in engineering sectors facing just a 1.9% pay gap, dramatically less than the UK’s average of 8.6%. Reports also show that 60.7% of female graduates studying engineering are finding full time work, in comparison to just 58.8% of total graduates.

With the sector looking to change in favour of women in the next few years, now is a great time to apply and begin a career in engineering. Hunter Selection have hundreds of roles within the engineering sector waiting to be filled, take a look at our vacancies here, if you’re interested.

Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2019/jun/26/how-changing-attitudes-are-closing-the-gender-gap-in-engineering