UK 'needs more women in top industry jobs'

London – The UK will struggle to increase the pipeline of women into industry unless action is taken now to increase the talent pool of female engineers, the EEF has warned.

The warning accompanied the launch of the first FTSE 100 Women in Manufacturing index, published by the EEF in partnership with Lloyds TSB Commercial Banking and Cranfield School of Management

Launching the report, EEF called for a national campaign to increase the number of women learning STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects to a professional level. It also wants more to be done to promote vocational career routes, including apprenticeships.

Manufacturing companies in the FTSE 100 have a higher than average number of women on their boards compared to the FTSE 100 overall according to the report - the first major assessment of the role of women in senior positions in manufacturing companies.

The report highlights that out of the 29 manufacturing firms within the FTSE 100, women account for 19% of board positions, which is slightly higher than the 17% average of the entire FTSE 100.

Of the 309 FTSE 100 manufacturing board seats, 59 seats are held by women. Women make up 23% of all non-executive directorships (NEDs) and 8% of all executive directorships (EDs) within the Manufacturing FTSE 100. This, notes the EEF, is nearly identical to the entire FTSE 100 where women account for 22% of all NEDs and 6% of all EDs.

The study also includes a new ranking of the number of women on FTSE 100 manufacturing boards. 

GlaxoSmithKline tops the 2013 Female FTSE 100 ranking of manufacturing firms, with five women making up 33% of their board.  In second place is Diageo, with four women out of eleven directors.  The majority of companies (62%) have one or two female board members and just under a quarter have three female directors.

However, with 81% of directorships held by men, just like other sectors, manufacturers have some way to go in tapping into the full talent pool at levels of their workforce. Some commentators have suggested that the best way to address this is by introducing quotas for the numbers of women on boards.

EEF’s analysis suggests that this would not address the underlying issue of the need to increase the pipeline of women with engineering and other skills choosing to work in manufacturing.   

Currently, nine out of ten engineers are male and, 20% of the manufacturing and engineering workforce is female compared to 49% in other sectors. Furthermore, since 2008 the number of female engineers has gone up just 1% to 6%. This leaves a huge disparity compared to the rest of Europe with 18% in Spain, 20% in Italy and 26% in Sweden.

According to the EEF, this disparity is due in part to the failure to encourage enough young women to study science related topics which has left half of UK state schools having no women studying A level physics.

To increase the pipeline of female engineers at all levels, the organisation wants to see a national campaign to increase the number of women studying STEM topics to professional level, as well as to promote apprenticeships and other vocational routes into work.

To achieve this,  careers advice must focus on promoting science and engineering options at a much earlier stage in school than the current key stages 4 (ages 14-16) and 5(ages 16-18), EEF argues.

As part of the campaign, EEF has also challenged manufacturers to get more of its apprentices and manufacturing graduates involved in going back into their schools, colleges and universities to promote careers in Industry.

“Whilst manufacturing is making progress there is no getting away from the fact that women are substantially under-represented in our sector at a time when industry needs to be tapping into every potential talent pool to access the skills it needs,” said EEF CEO Terry Scuoler.

“Some will argue for quotas for women on boards but this would not address the underlying need for a substantial increase in the pipeline of women with engineering and other key skills going into industry. We need a huge national effort to make this happen and government, education, and industry itself all have a major role to play.”

For Dr Ruth Sealy, deputy director of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management and report adviser: Boards need to champion the issue and take proactive steps to identify and develop talented individuals within their organisations for executive directorships.  Mentoring is a vital activity to grow the female talent pipeline and enable high flyers to realise the possibility of career progression.”