Tomorrow’s Engineers’ Week ideal time to encourage talented females

The EEF and Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) are two of the many organisations encouraging manufacturers to embrace ‘Tomorrow’s Engineers’ Week, being held from 3-7 November, in order to highlight the opportunities the sector offers young people, girls in particular.

Launched by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2013 in partnership with the engineering community, the week aims to change perceptions of engineering among young people (focusing on 11-14s), their parents and teachers.

Dr David Brown, Chief Executive at IChemE, said: “Showing our support for Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2014 is very important to IChemE, and we fully encourage our members to promote the profession to young people, particularly girls, in the UK. More than a quarter of chemical engineering undergraduates are female, but we need to work harder to increase that number.”

The shortage of young talent and appropriately qualified manpower in the plastics industry has been all too apparent for a number of years now, with the latest BPF survey from June 2014 suggesting nearly half the companies surveyed were experiencing difficulties recruiting technical staff.

“Tomorrow’s Engineers Week is a golden opportunity to rekindle realistic and achievable career aspiration in the young. By making it clear that our sector has plenty of interesting jobs available, pays well and offers good long-term career prospects, we will be ticking many of the boxes for young people and their parents,” said Verity O’Keefe, Employment and Skills Policy Adviser at EEF.

 “The fact is that our sector has struggled with an image problem and this has left it lagging behind in the race to attract talent. It’s vital that young people are now given an accurate and up-to-date picture of the wealth of opportunities on offer,” O’Keefe added.

“The ongoing skills shortage, higher than average pay and the fact that manufacturing is leaping up the Government and public agenda, makes this a key time to reach out to young people and ensure they understand how and why they should get involved.”

‘Tomorrow’s Engineers Week is asking companies to support the campaign on social media and by highlighting the benefits of engineering careers to young people wherever possible. For more information, contact: www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk