Judith Hackitt made a statement that she thought there should be a higher number of women working in the engineering industry and noted that it was a career that would help to make a real difference to future generations. Engineering is defined as “the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures”. The number of jobs available in the industry are vast and I know from my friends at university that when it came to the number of people on these courses, they were always packed but the majority was men in every single class.
The UK in comparison has a much lower rate of female engineers than anywhere else in the EU, perhaps suggesting that women in the UK are not as highly encouraged to enter such a career path. With engineering playing such a crucial role in the future of the country, especially considering the current economic conditions, it seems only natural that more and more people want to play their part in this process. Medicine used to be a similar brach of work in that many doctors were male years ago, we are now seeing that this isn’t the case and more medical courses at universities are being filled by an equal number of male and female students.
At the moment the most popular course for women is chemical engineering (1 in 4) followed by civil engineering (1 in 7) and mechanical engineering (1 in 20). Engineering is a particularly interesting field to get involved in, perhaps it is not something that many people feel they know about or understand, but it would be nice one day if the number of female UK students studying the subject might reach the level of those in Slovakia.
This guest post was contributed by Holly Powell on behalf of Process Industry Forum, to view their website click here.
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