At a time when the engineering sector is facing a serious skills shortage ICOM believes that more needs to be done to attract women into the sector.

He continued,

“Currently only 9 per cent of UK engineering professionals are women, compared to 18 per cent in Spain, 26 per cent in Sweden and 20 per cent in Italy. One of the ways to tackle the impending skills shortage is to attract, train and then retain women.

Research undertaken by WISE, (women in science, technology and engineering) show that school children, and especially girls, can be turned off science very early in their careers and that repeated interventions are needed to counter that mind-set.

ICOM and its members are working to improve the image of engineering and we want to attract new recruits from a wide and diverse background. If our industry is to continue to prosper then we must take active steps to address the gender imbalance that currently exists.

Real, live engineers are the best advert for the profession, we need ambassadors for our profession who will help spread the message and help draw people to our cause.”

During Science and Engineering Week, 13th–22nd March, we will be profiling a range of engineers and encouraging all engineers to tweet a photo of themselves using #engineeringselfie and #imanengineer.