BSRIA is celebrating National Women in Engineering Day (NWED) in an attempt to promote the subject to students in schools and universities, and encourage more women into engineering.
The day is dedicated to raising the profile and celebrating the achievements of female engineers.
Engineering continues to be a male-dominated profession, so the fourth NWED is a great time to address the problem. With just 13 per cent of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers being women, BSRIA is calling on the construction industry to help 'ignite the passion' of the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The engineering profession has long suffered from a lack of diversity, and the UK has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe.
Julia Evans, chief executive at BSRIA, said: 'Clearly, not enough is being done to attract women into the industry. Ergo, BSRIA calls on the government to change the tide of this worrying trend.
'Employers are realising that ‘female friendly’ policies, such as flexible working, go a long way to help attract women. But we also need to change young women’s (and their parents’) mind-sets to recognise that engineering offers a wide range of exciting opportunities for career development. Engineers and scientists touch every part of life.
'It is worrying that girls as young as five start defining what they can do and often rule things out due to gender. However, BSRIA is very encouraging of women going into engineering and is itself proud to be employing many female engineers who are flourishing. History has highlighted that those who pursue science arguably make the largest impact to the world; engineers help make the future a reality.'
BSRIA’s Inspire project, running throughout 2017, includes a series of events to inspire and engage the workforce of tomorrow with what the engineering industry has to offer. Inspire is based around the STEM subjects.