Tackling the engineering skills shortage

The University of Sheffield is leading the way to help inspire engineers of the future in order to tackle the skills shortage highlighted in the Perkins Review published today (4 November 2013). Professor John Perkins, chief scientific adviser at the Department for Business, Innovation, has identified a "substantial demand for engineers" and issued a "call to action" to government industry and educators to "step up" and inspire future engineering talent and address skills shortages. The report, which is a major analysis of the talent pipeline in the sector, is welcomed by the University which has one of the biggest and best engineering faculties in the UK. Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, Faculty Director of Women in Engineering supports the review and highlights the desperate need for more women in a predominantly male subject. "By the time a child blows out the candles on their fourth birthday cake, they have already decided which jobs are for men and which are for women. Boys are fire fighters or builders, girls are nurses or teachers," said Professor Rodriquez-Falcon. "Tragically, children's books and TV programmes, as well as many parents and school teachers, inadvertently reinforce these socially constructed identities due to their own lack of understanding and preconceptions. "Alarmingly a miniscule six per cent of practicing engineers in the UK are women, according to the Women's Engineering Society. "This is the lowest number in Europe. In comparison Sweden, a country more famed for its flat pack furniture than its rich engineering heritage, has four times more female engineers than us. "But when did this great country of ours decide that women should not aspire to be engineers and help to change the world?