Women in SET
A NEW Government campaign to get more women into engineering is preaching to the converted at REACT Engineering.
But whilst a third of engineers at REACT are female - well above the national average - the company is not enforcing a policy of positive discrimination.
Director Pete Woolaghan said: “Whilst the Government recognises that there is a national problem in encouraging women into engineering we have never had any difficulty in doing this at REACT. We didn’t set out to recruit female engineers instead of men. It’s just that when we advertised the posts the best candidates at that time happened to be female.”
The Government’s recently launched Strategy for Women in Science, Engineering & Technology (SET) - which is backed by the DTI, DfES and the Women’s Equality Unit in the Cabinet Office - reveals that just 15 per cent of women apply to study engineering at university. At REACT, more women are coming forward all the time because of the less physical role of the modern engineer.
