New workforce data released today by EngineeringUK reveals the proportion of women working in engineering and technology roles has declined in the past year from 16.5% to 15.7%.

Furthermore, the latest Engineering Council registration statistics shows the average age at which women leave our professional Register is 43, compared with 60 for men.

Taken together, these statistics highlight a particular challenge for the engineering profession. The Engineering Council shares EngineeringUK’s hope that this data will serve as a wake-up call to engineering and technology companies to improve recruitment and retention practice.

While the overall proportion of women working in engineering and technology roles has declined over the past year, the proportion of women joining the Register continues to increase year on year. Likewise, the proportion of all engineers joining the Register between the ages of 30 and 49 continues to increase while the proportion joining aged 50-64 continues to decline.

Paul Bailey, Engineering Council CEO, said: “The Engineering Council fully supports EngineeringUK’s call to address the spike in women leaving the profession. With decisive action across recruitment and retention, we can see more women joining the engineering workforce, and, crucially, more women staying there and becoming professionally recognised.”

The EngineeringUK report is available here.