What could be done to attract more women and other groups that are underrepresented in the profession?When Jess Stone tells people she is training to become an engineer, they often remark that she does not look like the kind of person who would “fix a boiler.” According to the 23-year-old, who works for aerospace company Airbus, there’s “a bit of a misunderstanding around the term engineer. Oily overalls? These ideas are so outdated.”

While 47 percent of the UK workforce is female, the figure for those working in core engineering occupations is just 12 percent. In engineering businesses, it is only 9 percent, according to EngineeringUK. “Times have changed. There has been progress but it’s still a male bastion,” says Margaret Craddock, who has spent 33 years in the sector. She recalls one eager salesman visiting her site office 30 years ago and asking her, when she was the co-owner of a machinery business, “Is there anybody important here?” More recently, she has also heard men ask women in the sector, “Are you a real engineer?”

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