Liam Byrne – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Liam Byrne on 2014-06-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what progress his Department has made on increasing the number of women in engineering roles.

Mr David Willetts

BIS funds or supports a range of activities aimed at increasing the number of women in science and engineering roles. 55% of National Science and Engineering Competition prize winners were girls, as was the UK Young Engineer of the Year 2014.

BIS also funds STEMNET to run the STEM Ambassadors programme: a nationwide network of over 28,000 volunteers who visit schools to inspire young people, act as role models and bring STEM career opportunities to life. 40% of STEM Ambassadors are women. 91% of UK state secondary schools accessed STEM Ambassadors between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014.

BIS is also part of the ‘Your Life’ campaign that is designed to boost participation in science, technology, engineering and maths at school and beyond. Over 180 leading businesses and institutions have pledged to do more to highlight the career opportunities open to those studying STEM subjects, committing to create over 2000 new entry level positions including apprenticeships, graduate jobs or paid work experience posts.

As one of our pledges under the Your Life campaign, on 12 June 2014, my Hon. Friend the Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock) announced £30 million funding to increase the supply of engineers, to encourage more women into the sector and to address engineering skills shortages in smaller companies. The fund will enable engineering companies to establish training programmes to develop future engineers and boost the number of women in the profession. £10 million of the fund will be directed to a call to ‘Developing Women Engineers’ and £10 million to a call to ‘Improving Engineering Careers’.