Happy International Women in Engineering Day 2023!

In the build-up to INWED2023, the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) asked nine of their female engineer Members a series of questions about the sector, and what needs to be improved to encourage more women into engineering roles. Our own Principal Engineer, Fiona Neil, took part – read her answers, amongst others, in the full CIHT newsletter here:

https://www.ciht.org.uk

One of the questions was; ‘Why is female talent so crucial to the engineering industry’?

Fiona answered: “Women possess lots of qualities which make them a valuable asset to the engineering industry. A balance of both male and female employees within a company creates a much wider skill suite overall, which inevitably will impact their outputs in a positive way. “

It was followed up with; ‘With 2021 figures indicating that in the UK only 16.5% of engineers are women what can companies and organisations do to encourage more girls & women into engineering roles?’

Fiona answered, “It really needs to start in schools. I was lucky enough to recently attend my daughter’s school to give a talk about my job for their women in STEM topic. Engaging with the children about what my job entailed day-to-day helps them picture themselves in roles like these when they are older. Opportunities like this can really help young girls start planning for the future they want. It would be really great to see more of this and help children understand how exciting and rewarding engineering can be.”

At Connect we have some amazing women working in both our Transport Planning and Highway Design teams, and in fact 38% of our team are women working in an engineering role, considerably higher than the 16.5% UK average!

This year, the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) International Women in Engineering Day theme is ‘Make Safety Seen’. Recently, both Natasha White and Fiona Neil, two of our female engineers, received 100% in their HS&E CSCS Test for Managers and Professionals, championing safety in the workplace – well done both!

Connect Consultants INWED 2023