UK industry failing to make STEM topics attractive to women

Universities will need to bid for a share of the cash and then have to at least match the funding they receive. Bids will be reviewed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which will focus on a number of key criteria. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) says it will also join forces with major engineering employers and institutions, as well as some of the country's leading young engineers, to help persuade more young people to pursue a career in engineering. It will be critical for the scheme to be developed in connection with industry. While BIS has created the See Inside Manufacturing scheme as part of this approach, more effort is needed to convince students that engineering offers a viable career; even the use of the word 'manufacturing' is enough to put many people off – and young women in particular are said to associate 'manufacturing' with dirt and challenging workplace environments. Nigel Fine, chief executive of the IET, pointed out this remains a tough nut to crack. "Our 2013 Skills Survey found that more than a third of employers are not taking any action to attract women into engineering." That is a sad indictment of the attitude of UK companies and strange when you consider that 61% of respondents to New Electronics' critical issues survey cited skills as one of the biggest challenges for the UK's electronics sector. There is a lot of young talent out there – male and female alike – and we as an industry are doing little to spark the initial interest and then nurture it. Fine is right when he says it will take a concerted effort from the engineering industry as a whole to fix the problem.