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The survey, conducted by STEM Returners and published on International Women in Engineering Day, found that 27% of women feel they have personally experienced bias in recruitment due to their gender, compared to 8% of men. Similarly, 30% of women felt they had personally experienced bias in recruitment due to childcare responsibilities, compared to six per cent of men.
Both men (39%) and women (43%) attempting to return to engineering felt they had experienced bias due to a perceived lack of recent experience.
“The UK engineering industry needs to recruit 182,000 engineers annually to keep up with demand – this is not news. But despite this very clear and desperate skills shortage, 61% of STEM professionals on a career break are finding the process of attempting to return to work either difficult or very difficult and women are bearing the brunt of this challenge,” said Natalie Desty, Director of STEM Returners, a Hampshire-based organisation that matches employers with qualified and experienced engineers returning from a career break. More than 180 engineers have returned to work through the scheme across the UK.
“There is a perception that a career break automatically leads to a deterioration of skills. But the reality is, that many people on a career break keep themselves up to date with their industry, are able to refresh their skills easily when back in work and have developed new transferable skills that would actually benefit their employers. STEM organisations are clearly missing a major opportunity to get highly skilled, talented females back into the industry.”
The STEM Returners Index was conducted in collaboration with the Women’s Engineering Society, and spoke to more than 750 STEM professionals currently or recently on career breaks about their efforts to return to work. The study found that the pool of STEM professionals attempting to return to work is significantly more diverse than the average STEM workforce: over half of the survey respondents attempting to return to work were female and 38% were from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups, compared to 8% female and 6% BME working in industry.
“Sadly, while the results of this survey are concerning, they are not surprising,” said Elizabeth Donnelly, CEO of the Women’s Engineering Society. “We have seen that worryingly, STEM professionals from under-represented ethnicities find it more difficult to return to work and additionally, women are six times more likely to state that a lack of flexibility in working hours to allow for childcare responsibilities is a barrier to return.
“Many of these professionals took a career break for reasons outside of their control, but now, due to changing circumstances, are ready to get back to work. They are a highly educated, highly experienced and highly diverse group of STEM professionals who should not be overlooked. STEM organisations, industry leaders and hiring managers need to take note and think more broadly about how they access this hidden talent pool, giving talented professionals a fair chance.”
For example, Haley Storey, from Portsmouth in Hampshire, is now in an engineering role after being away from the industry for 17 years. Haley took part in one of STEM Returners' programmes with BAE Systems based in Portsmouth. After completing a 12-week placement working on a Type 45 Destroyer, she has now joined the company permanently as a Project Engineer, helping to find engineering solutions during ship maintenance or upkeep periods. “My CV would probably not have made the first round of the recruitment process, but the scheme enabled me to work alongside an experienced engineer and I was able to learn from him and get to grips with the workings of a large organisation,” she said. “Career breaks should not put good people at the bottom of the list – we still have ability, knowledge and often transferable skills so it would be great for that to be recognised.”
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.