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Based on new workforce data, Engineering UK is calling on organisations to review their recruitment and retention practices to ensure women aged 35-44 in engineering and technology roles remain in the profession.

EngineeringUK, an independent organisation that promotes the contribution of engineers, engineering and technology in our society, has published new data on women in engineering as part of its annual review of the engineering workforce.

To do this, it analysed the 2023 Labour Force Survey (LFS) data using an engineering footprint developed by EngineeringUK together with the Engineering Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The findings reveal that the percentage of women working in engineering and technology occupations dropped from 16.5% in 2022 to 15.7% in 2023, representing a fall of 38,000 women.

This is despite the overall proportion of engineering and technology occupations remaining consistent at 19.2%. In comparison, women made up over half (56.1%) of all other...

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Parents

  • The one thing that COVID brought us was more flexibility in employment practices such as hybrid working, compressed hours and work-from-home. These sorts of practices are a real boon for working families.

    However, what we have now been seeing is a shift back to more conventional working practices on the basis that we somehow are inefficient if we are not in the same office. Those of us who have experience working with internationally distributed engineering teams know this to be somewhat of a fallacy.

    So, I would question if some of this is due to those inflexible working patterns again being imposed and that those who came into engineering because of the previous flexibility are now having to leave again. The impact of inflexible working patterns will mostly fall on those that take the greatest burden with family responsibilities. The real truth would only be known by interviewing those leavers, which is likely to be in-practical.

    Of course, this assumes that there was an uptick in the statistics after COVID, unfortunately the previous data isn't available on the Engineering UK website.

Comment

  • The one thing that COVID brought us was more flexibility in employment practices such as hybrid working, compressed hours and work-from-home. These sorts of practices are a real boon for working families.

    However, what we have now been seeing is a shift back to more conventional working practices on the basis that we somehow are inefficient if we are not in the same office. Those of us who have experience working with internationally distributed engineering teams know this to be somewhat of a fallacy.

    So, I would question if some of this is due to those inflexible working patterns again being imposed and that those who came into engineering because of the previous flexibility are now having to leave again. The impact of inflexible working patterns will mostly fall on those that take the greatest burden with family responsibilities. The real truth would only be known by interviewing those leavers, which is likely to be in-practical.

    Of course, this assumes that there was an uptick in the statistics after COVID, unfortunately the previous data isn't available on the Engineering UK website.

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