Tag Archives: engineers

Britain is Lagging Behind Europe in Training Women

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Only 7% of professional engineers in the UK are female and companies must take the lead in redressing the balance according to Scott Fletcher – chairman and founder of UK cloud infrastructure specialists ANS Group.

 

“Private companies are beginning to take the lead in providing skills training and they should seize the opportunity to provide more apprenticeships for women in male dominated sectors. This is particularly true in the IT industry,” said Mr Fletcher.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2013 skills survey discovered that only 7% of professional engineers in the UK were women and that this figure has only risen by 2% over the last five years.

 

This compares with 18% in Spain, 20% in Italy and 26% in Sweden.

 

The Science and Technology Commons Select Committee is currently studying the progress of female students and academics pursuing science, technology, engineering and maths careers and hearing evidence from education providers.

 

“We need to increase the flow of young talent into tech and engineering industries and attracting more women is an obvious answer. Currently a large proportion of female Stem graduates (science, technical, engineering and mathematics) are choosing careers in other industries,” said Mr Fletcher.

 

A report published earlier this year by the Institute of Physics (IOP) found that half of all the co-ed schools in the UK did not put forward a single female student to sit an A-level in physics.

 

“It seems that Britain’s schools have pigeon holed physics as a ‘boys’ subject which is a notion that needs to be eradicated immediately,” said Mr Fletcher.

 

Scott Fletcher has been a consistent campaigner for reform of the way computing skills are taught to young people.

 

“Providing on-the-job apprenticeship training is every bit as vital as finding tech and science graduates. We find time and time again that young people aren’t leaving school with the skills they need to begin a career in a tech industry.

 

“The IT industry is obviously fluid and businesses need to re-invent themselves every few years. There is no sitting back on past glories in our industry and young talent is the essential fuel for that re-invention,” said Mr Fletcher.

 

ANS Group has designed and created its own ‘Cloud Academy’ that will provide industry led training for approximately 60 apprentices in Cloud technology every year. It is hoped that the academy will see at least five new candidates joining the ANS team each month.

 

Our ANS Cloud Academy – which is based in Manchester – is part of the government’s ‘Employer Ownership of Skill Pilot’ which invites employers to develop any proposal that teaches skills, creates employment or drives economic growth.

First mother and daughter to engineer a double act

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Two female family members from Ayrshire in Scotland are believed to be the first ever mother and daughter to both gain a qualification in a profession dominated by male engineers.

Suzanne Flynn became a Chartered Engineer 35 years ago and her daughter Emily has recently gained the same status. Chartered Engineer is one of the most recognisable international engineering qualifications. Of the 191,224 Chartered Engineers in the UK, only 8,154 (four per cent) are female.

An electrical engineer, Suzanne, 64, is Principal Consultant at Cygnet Solutions Ltd, a professional IT services provider. Daughter Emily, 32, is an RAF Squadron Leader Engineering Officer, who has served in Afghanistan.

Suzanne said: “I am delighted that Emily has gained this prestigious professional qualification. Engineering is one of the most rewarding and varied professions and I am pleased that Emily can look forward to many years of career enjoyment.”

Emily said: “I am really pleased to have been awarded my CEng and proud that my mother and I are the first mother-daughter to do so. Mum has been an inspirational role model. The RAF has ensured that I have been given the opportunity to gain the competences required and is a fantastic place to be an engineer. Hopefully, we can also be the first mother-daughter Fellows as well!”

Both Suzanne and Emily are members of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Europe’s largest engineering professional body which awards Chartered Engineer to more recipients than any other institution.

Michelle Richmond, IET Director of Membership, and herself a Chartered Engineer, said: “Gaining Chartered Engineer status is a massive achievement in its own right. With engineering still a male-dominated industry, Suzanne and Emily join a very select group of females to have successfully achieved the qualification. We believe they are the first mother and daughter in the UK to both achieve this internationally recognised qualification and we are delighted for them.”

Outside of the engineering world, Suzanne’s interests include travel, opera, speaking Italian and beekeeping. Daughter Emily is a keen mountaineer and has been on two expeditions to the Himalayas. She is also Vice Chairman of the RAF Mountaineering Association and has represented the RAF, Combined Services and Scotland Under-18s in hockey.

Is President Obama Right About Engineers?

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Is President Obama Right About Engineers?: Significant Numbers Unemployed or Underemployed

WASHINGTON,  During a recent video chat session, President Obama told a woman that he could not understand why her engineer husband was unemployed because “industry tells me that they don’t have enough highly skilled engineers.” However, in an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies of the data from the American Community Survey collected by the Census Bureau show that there are a total of 1.8 million U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who are either unemployed, out of the labor market, or not working as engineers. This is true for those with many different types of engineering degrees.

For a complete review of the American Community Survey, including a table containing detailed employment figures for specific engineering degrees, visit the Center for Immigration Studies website at: http://cis.org/obama-and-engineers

The 2010 American Community Survey shows:

  • There are 101,000 U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who are unemployed.
  • There are an additional 244,000 U.S.-born individuals under age 65 who have a degree in engineering but who are not in the labor market. This means they are not working nor are they looking for work, and are therefore not counted as unemployed.
  • In addition to those unemployed and out of the labor force, there are an additional 1.47 million U.S.-born individuals who report they have an engineering degree and have a job, but do not work as engineers.
  • President Obama specifically used the words “highly skilled.” In 2010, there were 25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or Ph.D. and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.
  • Relatively low pay and perhaps a strong bias on the part of some employers to hire foreign workers seems to have pushed many American engineers out their profession.
  • There are many different types of engineering degrees. But unemployment, non-work, or working outside of your field is common for Americans with many different types of engineering degrees.
  • The key policy question for the United States is how many foreign engineers should be admitted in the future. Contrary to President Obama’s statement, the latest data from the Census Bureau indicate there is a very large supply of American-born engineers in the country. It would be better for the president to seek more diverse sources of information than simply relying on “industry” to determine what is going on in the U.S. labor market.

Data Source: Figures for the above analysis come from a Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the public-use file of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Figures on degrees and employment are based on self-reporting in the survey and have been rounded to their nearest thousand. The survey asks about undergraduate degrees, so some of the individuals who have a Master’s or Ph.D. may not have their graduate degree in engineering. Also, those who indicated that they have a “professional degree” are not included in the discussion of those with Masters’ and Ph.D.s because a large share have law degrees. The 2010 data is the most recent ACS available.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institute that examines the impact of immigration on the United States.

 

SOURCE Center for Immigration Studies