British industry still suffers from a lack of engineers. Such is the concern that business secretary Vince Cable believes the shortage provides a serious threat to recovery. In particular, Cable highlighted the lack of women currently working or actively seeking employment in the British engineering industry.
Only 8% of British engineers are women, which is the lowest proportion in Europe. Compare that with Germany (15%), Sweden (25%) and top-performing Latvia (30%) and it’s easy to see why there is such deep-seated concern.
Research suggests the problem starts long before young people choose a career with many youngsters ditching maths and science as soon as they can. It’s a trend especially marked for girls.
A recent article in the Sheffield Star highlighted the concern. The newspaper reported that only 14 per cent of students at the new University Technical College, are girls. At the newly opened training centre at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, just four of the 160 engineering apprentices are female.
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