Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to ensure that more women are able to take up senior positions in engineering businesses.

The Government is working with employers, professional bodies and HE and FE institutions to encourage more women to enter engineering and to remove barriers to their progression.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) funds the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering jointly to run a programme of work aimed at understanding and addressing issues of diversity in the STEM workforce.

The Royal Academy of Engineering has developed a diversity concordat which 70% of engineering institutions, representing over 90% of registered engineers, have now signed. They also run the Diversity Leadership Group, made up of senior industrial representatives from an array of engineering disciplines who steer and review collective actions to increase the size and diversity of the engineering talent pool

BIS contributes to the cost of hosting the finals of the National Science and Engineering Competition at the annual Big Bang Fair which took place last month. 55% of Competition prizewinners were girls and the Fair promoted Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) careers to a record number of schoolchildren.

BIS also funds STEMNET to run the STEM Ambassadors programme: a nationwide network of over 27,000 volunteers who visit schools to bring STEM career opportunities to life. 40% of STEM Ambassadors are women.