Women’s Engineering Society joins the Tomorrow’s Engineers Code

Supporting and celebrating women working in the engineering sector is imperative if the sector wants to inspire more young people to become tomorrow’s engineers. In supporting the Code, WES joins the growing number of Code signatories and supporters working together to improve the diversity and number of young people entering engineering.

WES is a charity and a professional network of women engineers, scientists and technologists offering inspiration, support and professional development. WES works in partnership to support and inspire women to achieve as engineers, scientists and as leaders, and to encourage the education of engineering.

The Code brings employers together to inspire a diverse engineering workforce, and it is all about working together to increase the diversity and number of young people entering engineering careers. To achieve these goals, signatories make four pledges about their approach to funding, designing, delivering, and learning from engineering outreach activities (including STEM programmes dedicated to inspiring young people into engineering).

EngineeringUK’s briefing on women in engineering showed that 16.5% of the engineering workforce were women in 2021 and there is still much to do to ensure women are represented in the sector. The Engineering Brand Monitor showed that perceptions of engineering start early, with 63% of young people aged 11 to 19 agreeing that ‘girls face more barriers that make it harder for them to get ahead in engineering than boys’. It was also highlighted that 65% of parents and 55% of secondary school STEM teachers agreed that ‘women face more obstacles that make it harder for them to get into engineering than men’.

Karen Woodward, business partnership manager at EngineeringUK, said: “The Tomorrow’s Engineers Code is all about bringing organisations within the engineering sector together to share insight and inspire the next generation of engineers. I am thrilled that WES has joined The Code community and it is even more exciting that we can announce this as part of INWED.

“We are excited to be working with WES and delivering a masterclass for their partners next month. Representation is incredibly important in engineering, and I hope this partnership can help to ensure more young women see themselves as engineers.”