Choose engineering

Dear Editor

Today (Thursday) is National Women in Engineering Day, which is dedicated to raising the profile and celebrating the achievements of women in the industry.

This is the third year that the day has been celebrated but behind the celebration is a worrying long-term trend for girls and women to shy away from an engineering career.

In the UK, women represent just nine per cent of engineers, the lowest percentages in Europe.

What perplexes me most about all of this is that it doesn’t need to be this way. The variety of creative and stimulating careers available to women in modern engineering is vast – female 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.

So how do we entice more girls into engineering? It’s a challenge the Institution of Engineering and Technology and others have been grappling with for years: finding and championing female engineering role models to inspire the next generation, working with schools and parents to make sure girls get the right career advice and encouraging more girls to study ‘engineering gateway’ subjects like maths and physics.

Entries for the 2016 IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards championing female engineering talent, which close on Thursday, June 30, are strong this year. Clearly today’s female engineers and the companies they represent are not losing heart and are still committed to getting more women in the UK’S engineering workforce.

Naomi Climer President, Institution of Engineering and Technology, London