{"id":49,"date":"2017-06-25T09:46:56","date_gmt":"2017-06-25T08:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/womeninengineering\/?p=49"},"modified":"2022-01-20T10:43:35","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T10:43:35","slug":"apprenticeships-and-mentoring-are-key-to-getting-more-women-into-engineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/apprenticeships-and-mentoring-are-key-to-getting-more-women-into-engineering\/","title":{"rendered":"Apprenticeships and mentoring are key to getting more women into engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all familiar with the stats: fewer than 9% of the engineering workforce is female and only 6% of registered engineers and technicians are women. The question on everyone\u2019s minds is how to close the gap. As the industry association representing the manufacturing industry, EEF hears first hand from manufacturers on their desperate skills gap and their desire to recruit more skilled women into their workforce.<\/p>\n<p>We believe there are two ways the industry can encourage women into the industry and support them once they\u2019ve started their career:<\/p>\n<h2>Apprenticeships<\/h2>\n<p>Apprenticeships will prove the key to filling the skills gap in manufacturing in general, and in getting more women into the industry particularly. We\u2019ve seen at our own apprenticeship training facility in Aston that there are an impressive number of stand-out young women each year. We\u2019ve profiled a few of these women and how they got into the industry:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2016\/dec\/inside-an-engineering-apprenticeship-ava-hawkins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Ava Hawkins<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2016\/dec\/inside-an-engineering-apprenticeship-sania-shahzad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Sania Shahzad<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2016\/dec\/inside-an-engineering-apprenticeship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Jessica Tozer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2017\/feb\/from-apprentice-to-head-of-technical-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Hannah Parker<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2017\/apr\/day-in-the-life-of-a-higher-technical-product-design-apprentice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Hannah Clarke<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/apprentices\/news-and-blogs\/2017\/mar\/day-in-the-life-of-an-apprentice-georgina-at-ishida\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inside an engineering apprenticeship: Georgia Rhodes<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Mentoring<\/h2>\n<p>To mark <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/about-eef\/media-news-and-insights\/blogs\/2017\/jun\/mentoring-the-next-generation-of-women-in-engineering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">International Women in Engineering Day<\/a> 2017, I wrote about the importance of properly mentoring to keep women in the industry and moving into leadership positions at their organisations. This was echoed in a recent article\u00a0in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2017\/05\/women-mentors-engineering\/527625\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Atlantic<\/a>, which highlighted a study that found \u201cfemale engineering undergraduates who are paired with a female mentor felt more motivated, more self-assured, and less anxious than those who had either no mentor or a male one. They were less likely to drop out of their courses, and keener to look for engineering jobs after they graduated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Part of this mentorship involves identifying female engineers who have achieved success in their field to serve as role models for what can be achieved. At EEF, we\u2019ve created a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eef.org.uk\/campaigning\/campaigns-and-issues\/current-campaigns\/women-in-manufacturing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Women in Manufacturing page<\/a> dedicated to identifying and profiling women who have achieved success in manufacturing. You can\u2019t help but be inspired by these women, many of whom actively support younger women entering the industry.<\/p>\n<p>We hope you will join us in marking #INWED17 and #womeninmfg on Twitter, and share your story of how we can close the gender gap.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/womeninengineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/541\/2017\/06\/caroline-gumble-200x200.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-69\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/womeninengineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/541\/2017\/06\/caroline-gumble-200x200.jpg\" alt=\"Caroling Gumble\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By <strong>Caroline Gumble<\/strong>, COO at EEF, the manufacturers\u2019 organisation<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all familiar with the stats: fewer than 9% of the engineering workforce is female and only 6% of registered engineers and technicians are women. The question on everyone\u2019s minds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[286,26],"tags":[42,46],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engineering","category-blog","tag-inwed17","tag-international-women-in-engineering-day-2017"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Gareth Ward","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/629\/2017\/06\/inwed17-blog-1280x1024.jpg","postExcerpt":"We\u2019re all familiar with the stats: fewer than 9% of the engineering workforce is female and only 6% of registered engineers and technicians are women. The question on everyone\u2019s minds [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}