Breaking UK tech's gender divide

Women now outnumber men at undergraduate level in medicine and the biological sciences. But in the physical sciences, the pattern is different: according to Ucas, only 23% of students starting physics degrees in 2016 were women, while for engineering, the figure was 17%. Women also leave science and engineering careers in greater numbers than men: only 1 in 8 of those in engineering occupations, and less than 1 in 10 of those in an engineering role within an engineering company, are women.

It matters for two reasons, says Helen Wollaston, chief executive of Wise, a campaign to attract more women into science and engineering. The first is the impact on women themselves: the difference in starting salaries between Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and non-Stem graduates can be as much as £6,000. The second is the skills crisis: “If we can’t get more people in this country with the skills to meet those vacancies, then jobs will go overseas, where there are more people with those qualifications.”

The main route into a Stem career is still the undergraduate degree, sometimes followed by a master’s or PhD. The early specialisation of the English system tends to make it easy for girls to abandon physics at an early age, although the apprenticeship levy on businesses is likely to precipitate an increase in the numbers of Stem apprenticeships available, while 32 universities and colleges are piloting conversion master’s courses in engineering and technology. Some universities, says Wollaston, are adding technical elements to courses such as business studies, as another way of engaging women’s interests.

Why are these subjects still so unattractive to women? Cait MacPhee, professor of biological physics at the University of Edinburgh, thinks there is an “element of machismo” in perceptions of physics as a particularly “hard” subject, and that engineering is still regarded as “very hard-hat wearing, tramping around site in steel-capped boots”.

Parimala Shivaprasad, a PhD student in chemical engineering at the University of Bath, agrees. Outreach work in schools has made her aware of an “information gap” in the UK: “When we ask children to draw what an engineer looks like, we always have a man with a hard hat.” It’s very different from Shivaprasad’s experience in India, where 28% of engineering students are women.

Wise is working to attract more girls to the industry by emphasising the importance of qualities such as creativity, organisational skills and sociability. The campaign is also emphasising the usefulness of engineering, which, research has shown, particularly appeals to girls. “Rather than just say: ‘You could be an engineer’, we say: ‘You could be designing buildings that are more carbon-neutral, or you could be involved in renewable schemes that need engineering and tech skills,’” says Wollaston.

Some engineering firms are working hard to recruit more women. BP, for example, runs women-only recruitment days to attract female engineers, and also offers flexible working to retain its female staff.

The ideal candidate these days, says Wollaston, is one who has personal and communication skills as well as technical ones. “Having a combination of great people skills, great creativity and great technical knowledge will be a passport to a really good job – somebody with that combination of skills is going to be the most sought-after kind of person.”