Quotas to boost women in engineering

Climer said the introduction of new measures such as quotas would be one way of creating better gender diversity within the industry.

Currently, less than 10% of engineers in the UK are female, with figures taken from the IET’s 2014 ‘Skills & Demand’ survey suggesting the numbers could be as low as 6% overall.

If there was just one issue we would have fixed it by now, but there are just so many little parts that we need to fix

IET president Naomi Climer

“Despite the best efforts, there has been little progress in attracting more women into engineering over the past few decades so I feel that the time is right to force action through the use of quotas,” Climer said.

“Diversity is good for the bottom line because mixed teams, whether of race, gender or age are naturally more creative and therefore better able to come up with solutions for the problems engineers face. So, it’s frustrating and disappointing that the sector’s glaring gender disparity has not been fixed.”

One of Climer’s first initiatives as IET president includes the introduction of new recommendations via an IET collaboration with Prospect - the trade union for professionals.

Employers will be offered guidance on how to recruit, promote and retain more experienced women working in science, technology and engineering roles, IET said.

IET will also work alongside the government and employers to establish an all-party parliamentary group for women working in these professions.

“If there was just one issue we would have fixed it by now, but there are just so many little parts that we need to fix,” Climer said.

“I will be working hard to highlight just how creative, exciting and diverse an engineering career is,” she added.

Climer, who has been an engineer for almost three decades, is the first female president in the IET’s 144-year history.