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Petra Gratton: ‘Not many women want to be pioneers’. Below: Sara Underwood
After school, the next hurdle to overcome on the way to a career in engineering is university, where the retention of female students is a major concern. They drop out for reasons ranging from finance to feeling isolated.
London’s Brunel University is tackling the problem by launching two initiatives. It is offering 40 female engineering students £1,250 a month to study for masters degrees. The bursaries will cover 16 courses in sectors including aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, and computing. The university will also be carrying out research into the attitudes of its female students which it will later publish.
The project leader at Brunel, lecturer Petra Gratton, says: “There is a shortage of engineers in the UK and women are the last pool of workers left to mine. Engineering is failing at attracting women. Women need to be able to see a future in engineering or it is not an attractive prospect. Not many women want to be pioneers, it takes a special person to do that.”
As well as providing financial help to female students, universities also need to provide emotional support. They need to avoid a situation where women feel isolated on their courses and get picked on for being in the minority.
Dawn Bonfield, executive vice-president of the Women’s Engineering Society, says: “There needs to be more support and a culture change in many engineering departments. We are keen to set up groups. What we don’t want is a student that pays £9,000 a year and doesn’t enjoy the experience and doesn’t go on to a career in engineering. We have to ensure that women on courses are supported fully, stay on the courses, get the most out of it, enjoy it, and go on into the right careers.”
Many universities are forming partnerships with engineering firms in a bid to support female students. Halliburton, a provider of products and services to the energy industry, recently launched several Stem initiatives in partnership with the University of Aberdeen. In November it held a leadership luncheon, which provided a forum for 70 postgraduates and young academics to hear the experiences of women in senior positions in the industry, research and academia.
Following the event’s success, Halliburton is now hoping to roll out the idea across the region. The company also partners with the university’s Society of Petroleum Engineers, with its ambassadors giving talks and presentations.
Tola Ogunbiyi, Halliburton’s talent acquisition manager for Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, says it’s important to speak to students to put right any misconceptions: “The only time concerns of sexism and discrimination come up is when we are visiting schools and universities and the students come to us wanting to know the truth. For example they ask, when you are working offshore do you have to share a room with eight other men?”
Another route into engineering is provided by apprenticeships. For the past two academic years, women have made up just 3% of people doing apprenticeships (360 out of 10,990 in 2012-13), compared to 5% 10 years ago (510 out of 11,100 in 2002-03).
In December, 21-year-old Sara Underwood was awarded the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Mary George Prize for Apprentices at the Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards. Underwood is in the final year of a higher apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce, where she works in the manufacturing and engineering department. She says: “I have worked in different teams within that department, could be quality, health and safety, product introduction, business improvement. I spend a couple of months in a team to understand what they do and help out in any way I can. We come up with the processes for actually manufacturing the parts.”
She has completed an HNC and this year began studying for a BEng in manufacturing engineering at Liverpool John Moores University. It is a day-release course.
“When I was looking at university courses I discovered how wide a subject engineering is,” she says. “Through watching a TV programme about how to build a jet engine, it inspired me to think that maybe university isn’t the only way.
“In the future I would like to be the first female CEO of Rolls-Royce – shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll end up in the stars.”