I am no stranger to 'male-dominated industries'. After setting up my own manufacturing company, I never got used to feeling like the stranger in the saloon at trade shows filled with men, or to correcting people who asked me where the boss was. And from there I moved into politics – another field where men have historically ruled the roost, although women are increasingly, and crucially, making their presence felt.
Today is National Women in Engineering Day. It is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate women in engineering, and to showcase the many achievements of women in this sector. But with women still so under-represented in engineering, I also see it as an important occasion to think about what we can do, as government, as business and as individuals, to help redress the balance in the sector.
The UK has the lowest proportion of female engineers in Europe - fewer than 10%. We need to ask why young women aren't choosing these fascinating careers and what the barriers are which prevent or discourage them.
This is not just an issue of diversity. According to the Pearson/CBI Education and Skills Survey 2014, 39% of firms looking for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills and knowledge already have difficulties recruiting staff, and over half expect to have problems in the next three years. Faced with this shortage, it would be ludicrous from a business perspective too, not to take advantage of the huge amount of talent amongst our women and girls. This is something that I, and the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, Nicky Morgan, are very passionate about supporting.
The first step is to encourage girls to keep studying STEM subjects at school and university. It's a huge shame that while as many girls as boys achieve the top grades in maths and science at GCSE, far fewer girls progress to A level. Only 19% of those who achieve an A* in GCSE physics, for example, continue to A level, compared with about half of boys. And this pattern continues at university, with women taking up only 14% of engineering places.
This is why the government is supporting the Your Life campaign, which aims to boost the number of young people taking A level physics and maths by 50% within three years, and to double the proportion of undergraduate engineering and technology degrees taken by women by 2030, including by connecting young people to key figures from industry who can help them on their way to careers in STEM. The campaign also asks business to take action to increase female participation in these sectors, for example by pledging to increase diversity on their apprenticeship schemes, or to initiate women's networks within their companies. Over 200 organisations have signed up to date.
Part of the issue is entrenched ideas of 'male' and 'female' careers, which we know have already formed when children are at primary school. Girls need to choose from the broadest range of careers, and not feel they will be funnelled by society's conventions into particular roles. Young women tell us they value their parents' support when making choices about education and careers, but we know that parents do not always feel equipped to help them navigate these crucial decisions. For this reason we recently published a guide for parents, Your Daughter's Future, to provide information on the range of choices girls face in thinking about their future careers, and to support parents to challenge gender expectations.
It's also important that young women have strong role models to attract them into the sector. People like Roma Agrawal, one of the inspiring structural engineers who worked on the Shard and Barb Samardzich, the Chief Operating Officer for Ford of Europe. The government also funds STEMNET's STEM Ambassadors programme, which sends over 30,000 volunteers working in science, engineering and technology into schools across the UK to inspire young people – and it's fantastic that 40% of them are women.
These programmes, as well as the excellent work being done by all the organisations involved in National Women in Engineering Day, will ensure that more girls have the knowledge, skills and confidence to fulfil their potential in the engineering sector. Initiatives like these are crucial to make sure that girls are able to benefit from the many and varied opportunities the engineering sector offers, and that the engineering sector can benefit from the widest possible talent base. The UK needs to recruit 83,000 new engineers every year over the next decade in order to remain competitive – this is talent we can't afford to ignore.
Guest posts
Guest post: "We need to ask why women aren't choosing engineering"
MumsnetGuestPosts · 23/06/2015 11:22
I joined a college course in 1986 that was aimed at specifically girls, Robotics & Control Engineering. To aid the uptake, all those enrolled were paid a YTS wage, so £27.50/week, rising to £35 in the second year. Still, only 6 girls signed up and in order for the course to run, boys who were enrolling on another engineering course were asked if they wanted to swap. They weren't told it was funded until they joined us, but they were paid like us.
So, we ended up as a class of 10.
Only 3 of us pursued careers in engineering, myself being the only girl. 2 other girls did do HND's but didn't get jobs in an engineering field.
After 10 years in Electronics, I moved into IT. I self taught myself a more obscure, at the time, operating system and had no trouble securing a job. In 1998 I was the only female in the group and when I left in 2006, I was still the only female. We did have female graduate trainee's pass through on rotation but none decided to take up our specialism.
Now I am back in STEM at high school level but at an all boys school, so can't comment on the enthusiasm of girls. But, I do have 2 dd's and would certainly encourage them to take that route if that's what they wanted to do.
I don't know how engineering can throw off it's reputation of being boring. When I was at uni, the joke was you could always tell the electrical engineers in the pub as they were the ones sat down having a boring conversation 
.
Absolutely agree with the poster up thread who said that it is the status of engineers in this country which is part of the problem. The title has been very widely applied, from someone who can design and build the most sophisticated piece of medical imaging kit, to someone who can service a washing machine. I suspect that because most people see the latter more regularly, that is what they think of as an engineer.
There is still a feeling that the this country prefers making money to making things. Didn't we allow our manufacturing industry to be decimated because the great god Financial Services was going to save us?
That went well. 
I don't get the impression there is sexism in my husband's engineering firm
He's also able to empathetic and hold interesting conversations :o
Lol at some of this thread!
We're taking DD to a couple of open days this weekend (she's only just done GCSEs, this is a preliminary mission!) . Among the other info in the mail, Loughborough has sent some on their Female Engineers drop in session. 
She's actually quite anti any form of 'positive discrimination' but it's good that this uni is making an effort to be welcoming to girls and make sure there's 'people like us' available to talk to.
As a Finn, I know what you mean about the Otaniemi engineer parties.. But it's still geeky, "honestly, aren't we outrageous?!" forced fun says the humanist 
Our lot are mostly genuinely pretty genuinely into it tbf. We've never allowed a Baltic cruise though, due to the danger of losing engineers
Our first discussion of a party involved the never to be forgotten line about 'yes, and you'd love the hot tub but only with the lady engineers of course' while I processed the concept of getting nude with the development team.
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