What’s being done to address diversity in engineering?

Diversity remains one of the hottest topics in engineering. The continuing struggle to attract women and those from minority backgrounds is felt across all fields and it’s a challenge that won’t be solved overnight.

But what’s actually being done to address the issue?

And which organisations are at the forefront of change?

The hard statistics on diversity in engineering

You don’t have to delve too far to see some of the worrying headline statistics.

Numbers collated by the Women’s Engineering Society point to the fact that just 11% of the UK engineering workforce is female.

The UK has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe and just 15.1% of engineering undergraduates are women, compared to 30% in India.

And that only begins to tell the story.

Meanwhile, in the US there’s a familiar trend.

Despite the business community’s pledges to address skills shortages and equality, the STEM diversity problem is still very apparent.

Approximately 84% of science and engineering professionals are white or Asian males.

And according to 2013 figures from the US Census Bureau, the relatively few women employed in the industry are hardly getting a fair deal.

The STEM pay gap between men and women in the US is around $16,000 per year.

Addressing diversity

Trade bodies and some of the world’s largest organisations have been vocal in their commitment to creating more diverse workplaces.

The Royal Academy of Engineering outlined its Strategic Plan for 2015-2010 with diversity forming part of one of its key pillars.

In its plan to address the engineering skills crisis, the Academy labels ‘working with partners to recruit many more women and other underrepresented groups to engineering’.

And in a January 2018 letter to the Daily Telegraph the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest engineering firms gave their support to addressing a lack of diversity.

However, it’s clear there’s still far more work to be done.

Google has faced a glut of high-profile cases of alleged discrimination. And a viral leaving note from departing engineer Sharon Lubetich highlighted similar issues at Snapchat.

Taking the positives

Amongst some of the negative headlines there’s hope on the horizon.

Caterpillar has shown its doing more than simply pay lip service to the subject.

The company recently released a video showcasing how its women engineers develop cutting-edge technologies and take on project lead roles.

And if we take a closer look at the construction industry there’s some positive data to back-up the anecdotal successes.

Randstad’s report on Women in Construction found that 16% of senior roles in UK construction are filled by women, an increase on the 6% of 2005.

The same survey also found that three quarters of female workers claimed that they would recommend a job in construction to a female friend, daughter or niece.

Elsewhere, to introduce fresh perspectives and innovative ideas, Airbus have pledged to ensure that 20% of its workforce will come from outside Europe by 2020.

BP has set itself a target of 30% of its senior level leaders to be women by 2020.

Is your business taking steps to address diversity and bolster its talent pipeline? It’d be great to discuss your approach. Get in touch via henry.grover@bps-world.com to get the conversation started.