Now in its seventh year, International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) is an international awareness campaign which raises the profile of women in engineering and focuses attention on the amazing career opportunities available to young women in this exciting industry.
The Institution of Civil Engineers in Wales (ICE Wales Cymru) will be marking the day along with its talented female members of whom two hold the important position of Chair for both ICE Wales Cymru Main Committee, Yvonne Murphy and Graduate and Student Committee, Tara Sirati.
Yvonne, Senior Civil Engineer at Mott Mac Donald says:
“The biggest success for women in engineering will be when people don't have to talk about it anymore. We need people who reflect society, to serve that society, particularly in civil engineering. We design civilian infrastructure that must be useful for everyone – irrespective of race, creed, gender”.
Tara Sirati, Geotechnical Engineer, Jacobs, Cardiff said:
Civil Engineering stands for innovation, breaking boundaries and moving forward, our workplace needs to reflect that. By introducing a gender balanced workplace we’re giving our industry a chance to fulfill its potential”.
Many other women enjoy engineering jobs across the country from Trainee Civil Engineer to Senior Highway Engineer or Group Director and are encouraging the growing popularity with young women looking to take up a career in the industry.
Michelle Russ, Assistant Design Manager, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, said:
“There are not enough women in engineering, I think there is still a little bit of a stigma that it’s a man’s job. There are a huge variety of roles for female engineers and it is a great place to work whether office based or on site”.
It has also been recognised that a skills gap in engineering is looming and one way of addressing this is to get more young women to consider this. In April this year 2097 out of 9253 of those on active ICE training agreement were women. ICE is also encouraging women to come back to engineering when they have taken a career break.
Keith Jones, Director of ICE Wales Cymru, said:
“Despite Apprenticeships being in the vanguard of the government's upskilling programme, the 2.2% female uptake of apprenticeships across the sector is unacceptable and must be engaged with and resolved quickly. Our focus in the coming year will be to encourage more females to undertake civil engineering apprenticeships. Our 16-18 schools' programme allows direct access to those female students who have chosen to study science subjects and who could move into apprenticeships or degree-level civil engineering programmes”.
To round off the day a special evening webinar will be hosted by Julie Bregulla, Group Director of Fire and Building Technology, BRE and Visiting Professor, University of Bath, who will provide an overview of the recommendations from the 2018 ‘In Plain Sight' report aimed at mitigating the risk of infrastructure failure. Julie has taken the lead from Prof. Peter Hansford to address mitigating the risks of infrastructure failure. She chairs the ICE working group implement the recommendations of the In Plain Sight report.
This evening event is in association with CIOB and IStructE.
Full details of the day’s events can be found at www.ice.org.uk
