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Today is International Women in Engineering Day (INWED), an international awareness campaign focused on building the profile of Women in Engineering.
Originally launched as a National campaign in 2014 by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary. The campaign was such a hit it grew to the point where in 2016 it gained UNESCO patronage and then international status in 2017, giving birth to INWED encouraging the celebration of women in engineering to become worldwide.
With this aspect of the industry going from strength to strength we caught up with one of our own leading female lights in manufacturing, trainee recruitment consultant Ami Taylor who shared a few thoughts on the industry and her experiences:
“Working within the industry at first was a challenge, I knew very little about the industry, but I thought the key to being successful was to keep open minded and try to learn as much as possible.”
Today is International Women in Engineering Day, from your experience what is the state of the industry?
“It is an interesting one really, it is known to be a predominantly male-dominated industry and I don’t often come across many female engineers when recruiting. However this could be because I mainly do contract work within production for the aerospace and automotive industries. What I would say is there has occasionally been times where contractors feel the need to challenge my experience and they can come across abruptly when talking to me, but I’m always confident in the knowledge I’ve attained during my time working for TXM Recruit.”
With a low female presence in engineering do you think there is a hunger and desire for more women to join the sector?
“100% and I think women will play a hugely important role in the development of the industry."
How do you think women are being perceived in this sector?
“From my experience working within the manufacturing sector, my job is to find positions for the automotive and aerospace sectors; like CNC machining, composite parts for race cars and panels for airplanes and over my time I've received amazing feedback from clients talking about their female members of staff and the tremendous job they deliver."
TXM Recruit is a company that has vastly increased its female workforce over the past couple of years, what advantages have you seen?
"I can only speak from my own experience whilst working with TXM Recruit and the team is equally balanced. Here at TXM Recruit I would say we employ based on your skills and that has proven to be successful due to our rapid growth within the business this year alone."
As the industry is now welcoming more women to the manufacturing do you think more young women should be considering it as a vocation?
"Yes definitely, I do think that the next generation of young woman should consider a career in engineering, if this is something they desire to become."
Do you think the industry is missing out on a lot of talent with the lack of females being in the sector?
“I feel all students should be encouraged to consider all types of industries including engineering for women. Due to the skill shortage at the moment in the engineering sector I feel that there would be a positive impact within the industry if more woman and men were to consider this as a career. That being said I also feel that there are other avenues that could prevent a skill shortage in engineering. This will be beneficial to clients, their companies and the industry. I think it's really important that we get that word out to break down the old stigmas because it is a win, win for everyone!”
You can show your support by joining the conversation on social media and using the hashtag #INWED19
