Sunday is Women in Engineering Day, the much-needed opportunity to celebrate the great work of female engineers and commit to breaking down barriers to equality in every way we can.
I have said before that Parliament is the most diverse organisation I have ever worked in. This usually surprises people. After all, under a third of MPs are women and just 3% are women from ethnic minorities like me. However, as a chartered engineer, I know from personal experience that the situation in STEM is often more extreme. I would regularly attend conferences with thousands in the room and be the only black woman there, and whilst I worked with many wonderful people during my time as a professional engineer, I also had experiences of discrimination and stereotyping.
Creating a more diverse workforce in STEM is not only desirable for social justice or fairness, it also makes shrewd economic sense. Britain needs more engineers, and if talented women are being put off because of a perception that these jobs ‘are not for them’ that harms the industry. In order to build STEM skills among underrepresented groups, we must dismantle the cultural stereotypes that form your minds, encourage inclusion, and importantly, promote female role models in the industry. This week, I went back to my engineering roots and met workers at Hitachi Rail in Newton Aycliffe. This was part of the Railway Industry Association’s (RIA) Rail Fellowship Programme, an initiative which seeks to give MPs a hands-on experience of the workforce in rail, by taking them on site to an organisation relevant to them.
Now Newton Aycliffe is not far from Newcastle but the North’s limited rail network ironically mean it is quite a time-consuming journey. Any time outside of my constituency and home city is hard to justify but I was keen to make this visit because I personally find it inspiring to meet young engineers and I know that as an engineer I would have benefited from seeing more engineers who looked more like me! Hitachi has been keen to promote diversity and inclusion, and I was pleased to find women in senior roles and to learn how the team at the factory are being proactive in encouraging females of all ages into manufacturing and engineering.
As well as holding female-only targeted events at the height of their recruitment drive, Hitachi continues to promote STEM as a future career prospect to girls from Primary age through interactive learning sessions. It is vital for businesses to engage more with schools and colleges to educate all young people on the exciting opportunities available in STEM and the rail industry, too often young people have no real idea of what engineering involves. The cliché is that women prefer caring industries - well I think engineering is the most caring industry – what could be more caring than providing clean water or helping people get home or see new sights?
Overall progress has been slow for women in STEM and when I entered Parliament I was determined to do all I could to help speed it up. As Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM, I have sought to push the issue higher on the agenda and am proud that a cross-party alliance of MPs have joined. Our current inquiry on equity in STEM education is open for evidence, and we are meeting with an array of groups to incorporate their views into the discussion. I was also pleased to speak at the launch of Women in Transport in the North East, at an event in Newcastle last year, considering practical steps to ensure better gender balance at all levels of the transport sector.
I am delighted to have had the opportunity to take part in Women in Engineering Day alongside RIA and Hitachi. It is important that the achievement of women in engineering is recognised and barriers to equality dismantled. There is no silver bullet and all of us, in Parliament, in industry, and at home, have a role to play in changing our society so that the fantastic jobs engineering offers are truly open to all. Women in engineering are not a ‘nice to have’ – we are an economic necessity.
Chi Onwurah is the Labour MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central and Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy, Science & Innovation