Dawn Fitt: Diversity can provide an ideal solution to the UK's engineering shortage

Published: 18 May 2006

As a nation, our need for engineers has never been so high. The UK needs to reserve its place among the ranks of other countries in an increasingly global marketplace, where competitive advantage is gained by developing new technologies and introducing innovative products. Also, as our society develops, we find greater need for technology to make life better and to fix some of the problems that are emerging like an ageing population, over-crowded cities, high energy consumption and a lack of water.

Engineers are the people who create such technology and will shape the future of the world.

The trouble is that while the need for engineers grows, the supply does not. One reason is that we fail to stimulate the interest of many groups in our society and in particular by making enough use of the potential engineering talent of half the UK population: women.

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) reported that women represent 1 in 12 engineers in the UK (EOC report to UKRC - Newsletter Dec 2005), while only 2.8 per cent of engineers registered with the Engineering Council are women (ETB Research Report 2005) and we are constantly being reminded that the skills shortage is damaging to the UK economy.

There are, however, a number of initiatives that are targeting female students but are we really inspiring sufficient numbers that will make a difference? We have seen the implementation of a UK Resource Centre for Women in SET (UKRC), a positive output from the Government's response to the Baroness Greenfield SETFair report in 2002. The UKRC is taking forward the Government's strategy for Women in SET and in 2004 they highlighted the fact that women accounted for only 18.7 per cent of science, engineering and technology (SET) employees. What is worse, if current trends continue; only 25 per cent of women who graduate with a SET qualification will enter SET employment in 2007/8.

Of course, these problems are not new. The Women's Engineering Society has been in existence since 1919 promoting education, training and practice of engineering among women. And Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) was launched in 1984. Without these campaigns the current situation could have been much worse but it is frustrating to see the problem of a shortage of engineers not being fixed when the better engagement of women is so clearly an obvious part of the solution.

Things are being done though. Working alongside the UKRC, The Royal Academy of Engineering's National Engineering Programme puts women and ethnic groups at the very heart of an initiative aimed at strengthening engineering. The strategy is to work with engineering departments in partner universities to help foster gender and ethnic appropriate courses. The National Engineering Programme (NEP) sets out to work in schools to engage under-represented groups and take them on a journey that will lead into higher education (a success in its own right) and a good number into engineering courses. This will be a 10-year mission, and the first step, a pilot project in London, is already underway with funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

An important dimension of the NEP is the way in which the many partners have come together to ensure we benefit from the sum of all the initiatives. This essential element of the NEP, bringing coherence to the many schemes that promote engineering, is also a main target of the Academy's Shape the Future campaign launched at the end of 2005, and which also challenges young people to do "one more thing" on the road to pursuing a career in engineering, science or technology.

In addition, schemes which raise the awareness of careers in engineering and technology have continually reported a gradual increase in the participation of young women. In particular, schemes within the Royal Academy of Engineering's BEST Programme such as Young Engineers, Headstart, the Engineering Education Scheme and Year in Industry reported a 39 per cent, 26 per cent, 30 per cent, and 24 per cent (respectively) participation of young women in the last year.

Interestingly we see projects that operate in primary schools, such as the K'Nex Junior Engineers for Britain challenge, having an equal gender balance and enjoyed by many thousands of year 5 and 6 pupils each year.

An excellent programme that takes young graduate engineers into schools to work with under-represented groups and demystify the world of engineering is the Science and Engineering Ambassadors scheme (SEAs). Managed nationally by SETNET and run locally by Setpoints they operate as role models and show that through their jobs engineering is fun, challenging and rewarding in all senses of the word.

Dawn Fitt is President of the Women's Engineering Society