View from the Academy
Despite some notable efforts, the engineering community still has a long way to go in building a more diverse culture writes Dr Hayaatun Sillem, deputy chief executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering
A fascinating new film will be premiered this month tracing the story of a group of NASA mathematicians – dubbed ‘human computers’ – who played a vital role in the US space programme, making crucial calculations to enable this superlative engineering effort. All were black women, and their story, Hidden Figures, celebrates a contribution thatwent largely unrecognised for decades.
Fifty years later, and despite efforts to improve diversity, statistics tell us that STEM professions, and the engineering community in particular, still have a long way to go in building a more diverse culture. For example, 20 per cent of physics A-levels are awarded to girls, the Institute of Physics found in its 2011 report It’s different for girls. Fifteen per cent of engineering and technology first degrees are awarded to females. Only 8 per cent of professional engineers are female, according to Prof John Perkins’ 2013 Review of engineering skills, and only 4.6 per cent of those registered with their professional institutions are female. 25.5 per cent of engineering and technology first degrees are awarded to people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, according to EngineeringUK 2016, while 14 per cent of the UK population are from minority ethnic backgrounds. But only 6 per cent of people in professional engineering roles are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, according to a Royal Academy of Engineering analysis of Labour force survey data in 2013.

These numbers concern us because, on the whole, engineering graduates are highly employable, with 81 per cent of new graduates in full-time work and/or further study just six months after graduation. However, there is a noticeable difference in the full-time employment outcomes between ethnic groups even after such a short time: 71 per cent of white engineering graduates find full-time jobs after six months, compared with just 51 per cent of black and minority ethnic students.
So how can we create a more diverse and inclusive culture in the years ahead? How do people who are currently working in today’s engineering profession perceive its culture? Does it feel inclusive and appealing to young engineers starting their first full-time job? These are vital questions for the future productivity and dynamism of UK engineering – a sector that employs over 5.5 million people and accounts for half the country’s exports.
The Royal Academy of Engineering’s vision is of an inclusive engineering sector that inspires, attracts and retains people from diverse backgrounds and reflects UK society. There is plenty of evidence that diversity of background is good for business, and different perspectives within teams help to drive innovation and creativity.
To find out how close our sector is to achieving this vision, the academy is conducting a survey this month of people working in engineering. (We would welcome your thoughts at www.raeng.org.uk/inclusivecultures.)
We plan to publish the survey results later this year and will also use them to inform our new Engineering Talent Project and the work of our Diversity and Inclusion Programme, both of which aim to build positive perceptions of UK engineering, encourage future talent to join the profession and remove barriers to them doing so. Ultimately, we want to improve diversity, workplace culture and employment practices, so that the reality across industry matches the aspiration.
Ethnicity seems to be one of the most significant factors impacting the employment of engineering graduates. Our survey will tell us more, but it is clear that engineering employers need to do more to encourage and engage with engineering students from all backgrounds.
So what might be done? In 2012, the academy established an Engineering Diversity Concordat in its drive to improve the situation and this is now supported by 30 professional engineering institutions and the Engineering Council. Last month, the Royal Academy and the Science Council launched a joint progression framework to help professional bodies across both science and engineering to assess and monitor their progress on diversity and inclusion. Professional bodies provide important support to scientists and engineers throughout their careers, recognising and upholding their professional standards, as well as providing continuous professional development. The new framework is the first of its kind and gives professional bodies the opportunity to assess activities such as membership, awards and events against four levels of progress, and identify what can be done to improve.
As an academy we work in collaboration with employers, such as our current work with the transportation sector to develop common procurement guidelines for encouraging greater diversity and inclusion through the supply chain.
We also work with partners on programmes that seek to engage under-served audiences with the engineering profession directly. One example of this is our pilot Engineering Engagement Programme, which works with 12 employers and SEO London to increase the flow of undergraduates and recent graduates into engineering work experience and employment. This programme particularly targets disadvantaged, minority ethnic and female students, and students from universities outside the Russell Group.
This is promising progress, but it must be sustained and built upon. The future success of our profession depends on us harnessing all the talent available. Assembling a diverse set of skills to call on will maximise our chances of achieving this.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem is deputy chief executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and will be contributing a monthly column to The Engineer.
Looking through those numbers, the black/minority-ethnic graduate job data looks most worrying.
The male/female split doesn’t take account of the length of careers – how does the 25-30 age group’s ratio compare with their ratio at university? The low female % of all registered engineers reflects the female % of degree courses in the 1970s 1980s and 1990s. Certainly the ratio on engineering courses now shows a marked jump in female %. As long as that % carries forward to the profession (maybe considering some adjustments for wider socio-economic issues beyond engineering) then the issue is at the age 14-17 stage, getting 50% female on degrees and especially engineering apprenticeships.
Similarly the black/minority-ethnic ratios in work reflect the incoming diversity during the 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s.
The concentration on graduate engineers is not taking into account that engineers’ heads are wired differently to academics. There needs to be more concentration on the skills approach at 14 years old for those without the academic inclination, but have the potential to be good engineers without a degree.
Diversity is the least of our problems ; if a young person is sufficiently interested, they will succeed. It is up to all of us to sow the seeds of engineering interest and to nurture those shoots without severe pruning at GCSE options time. We need engineers from any and every group if we are to maintain our global place.
Well said Sandy – I couldn’t agree more especially that our heads seem to be differently wired than pure academics.
I read these now regular stories about the need to improve diversity with an increasingly heavy heart,
It is long past the time, when august professions such as engineering rose above such things and left the pointless pleas for diversity to those with nothing better to think about.
It is not diversity that matters it is success and inspirational ideas that matter.
We must continue to be the best, we must continue to champion meritocracy not some camouflaged call for mediocrity for diversity’s sake.
The fact a group of black women were successful at human computing during the moon missions, is an excellent example of the best being used because they were the best, not because they happened to have some other attribute.
Good thing I read your post first, or I could have been accused of plagiarizing! Pursuing diversity solely for the sake of diversity (whatever that really is) is absolutely a fool’s errand. Those of us in the various engineering professions would do well to pursue excellence in both our work AND the perception of industry accomplishments to school children. The very reason most of us went down this path is due to a passionate connection between what is in the world and what could possibly be. I don’t know of many engineers that got started as a result of someone successfully “reaching out” to them due to sex, skin color, religion or whatever (I would have quickly brushed them off!). Romance the solving an array of challenges we face around the world and it will resonate across various peoples. If we don’t learn a few things from the pro marketing types, we’ll all end up reading pointless ‘diverse culture outreach’ articles for years. Sell the sizzle rather than over-analyzing the already cooked steak. The future engineers I want to hire are the ones with a gleam in their eye, not some arbitrary statistic hanging over their head. The K.I.S.S. method applies well beyond the CAD screen.
This is the kind of attitude that needs to be questioned.
I’m going to make an assumption that you are a white, middle-aged male who has never been on the wrong side of the diversity / inclusion situation. I have LGBT / female / colleagues of other races and religions who see countless images of senior management, all of whom are white, middle aged males, and they see it as another barrier and it completely disheartening. It is not always a question of the best person for the job, sometimes it comes down to creating a role model / inspirational leader who will inspire a generation, it does not matter if that person is male, female, LGBT, different race or religion so long as they inspire a generation. Frankly, they are more likely to be inspiring if they are not a white middle aged male, unless you want to inspire more reluctance to change.
Mediocrity now, can inspire a generation of brilliance later.
Hello Rod,
Meritocracy is often lauded as the direct counter argument to creating a diverse workforce.
This is an utterly contradictory position to take. Surely if it were a truely meritocratic education / application system then the engineering field would be reflective of national demographics / statistics. It is not however. And we must take responsibility to chaneg this.
The simple fact is that too few women / BAME / LGBT members of society wish to become engineers. Why is this? What is putting off a this staggering potential of future employees from entering our field?
Personally, i’m in the ‘positive action’ camp which to me that means we have a duty to improve the education engagement in local schools – let’s inspire girls, BAME students, the LGBT community (indeed everyone) that this is a great welcoming industry to work in. If we all did that then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Kind regards,
Elliott
The key is diversity of culture, approach, background, not DNA.
These gender issues are deep seated and aren’t limited to girls in engineering. My partner found it extremely difficult to find a job as a male housekeeper. Eventually I employed him because that was the only way for him to get a working visa and us living together. I had to explain to immigration though, why I wanted a male house keeper when everybody else wanted a female one.
In terms of gender representation across all engineering disciplines, the UK lies towards the bottom of the league table when compared to our European partners, which means that engineering enterprises in the rest of Europe have greater access to the talent pool than those operating in the UK. If we wish to outperform other nations, then we must at least try to compete with them on a level playing field when it comes to attracting skilled and talented individuals. Tackling diversity and inclusion is therefore a no brainer.
John,
Do not be conned into thinking comparison with others is a sensible method to create employment policy. We must never fall into the trap, of doing anything other than taking the best we can get. We are and should be forever gender and colour blind. Be proud of not being prejudiced.
Point is, Rod, we are not gender and colour blind. None of us are. Check out Project Implicit at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html and find out just how biased you are! We like people who are like us. And if the “us” in engineering is white middle class males, then what you get is more of that. You don’t get “the best” at all, you get “the best (as long as they are like the rest of us)”.
Points to muse on (not intended to be an attack on anything stated in the article) :-
“Only 25.5 per cent of engineering and technology first degrees are awarded to people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, according to Engineering UK 2016, while 14 per cent of the UK population are from minority ethnic backgrounds. ”
Unless the ‘only 25.5%’ is a typo, it indicates that the black and minority population are (laudably) over-represented in Engineering (and probably across other science based ‘difficult’ degrees) showing they are prepared to put in the work required for technical degrees.
We do have a significant proportion of foreign students who attend University here and from what I have seen here in Aberdeen, they also seem to gravitate to the technical subjects (computing. engineering etc.), are these included in the 25.5%?
In other areas in Europe, Engineer is a protected title and it is recognised as a well paid, highly respected profession. The only brush with ‘engineering’ most of the young population will have encountered in the UK will have been a visit from/to the ‘Automotive Engineer’, the ‘Domestic Appliance Engineer’ and the ‘Gas-boiler Engineer’ each turning up in overalls sporting a bag full of spanners (not meaning to denigrate the skills they have just the impression this gives Mr Joe Public). This does not engender endearing thoughts of “Oh, I want to be one of those Engineers when I grow up” in young minds. Lets face it – the general population in the UK has not the foggiest idea of what engineering is.
Professional Registration may also be more or less prevalent in different industries or sectors of industries. In my own (oil & gas drilling services) relatively few engineers register as it is not often looked for as a requirement (this also applies in the USA with their State Registration as ‘Professional Engineer’) The few I have encountered tend to be concentrated in design and product development
I do not think this article helps with its use of statistics – and using from different sources.
My understanding is approx 20% of UK students (at A level) are female – and these move onto physics & engineering. (Though some statistics say that half of state schools have no girls doing A level physics). Be that as it may other countries have 60% female students studying physics (at Uni). The 20% level has remained static for some years – despite progress towards gender equality in other sciences; this coupled with the difference in other countries suggests that it is something worrying in the state of education in the UK; it could be over-reliance on external tutors – or over reliance on role models. – or lack of inspirational and creative subjects. Certainly I think that the learning physics is harder than when I did it at school – and I am not sure that as much is achieved (disappointingly). I mention physics because it is a road science that underpins much in other sciences and engineering.
I hope we will see, in the future, a more informative article and better expressed numbers and arguments
I meant broad science — rather than road science. Sorry for finger trouble ;-}
Academic and/or practical? Engineers. Engineering, as a topic, came late to academia. To match the ‘skills’ and status of other subjects already studied at advanced levels, surely the earliest Engineering Schools had to up their status amongst their peers: and they did this by concentrating on mathematics. Worthy effort, but sadly opposed to the practicality which defines the application of Science? Are we where we are? (and hence must live with what our history gives us) or can we turn back any clock? Craig Mackay’s comment, particularly relevant as far as the impression on young people of their exposure to ‘engineers’.
Capital Letter for we Engineers, lower case for others?
A thought occurs to me reference the problem(s) that we Engineers have in preserving our proper professional status. When the ‘Greats’ -Brunel and his ilk- held the public (or at least that of the then leaders of society) attention and recognition…(and let us be honest, such was primarily for major projects and technology statements, often with a military or infrastructure link) ordinary citizens had almost no access to engineering in their daily personal lives. No cars, appliances, communication systems, heating, the areas where now the general public sadly equates Engineering -as practiced by our profession- with fitters, mechanics and handy-men.
Is this the area where our efforts might be directed? British Gas, their advertising agency and the regulatory authorities who frankly ought to know better, get an e-mail from me every time (far too many) they use the tern ‘engineer’ improperly in their advertising. Join my crusade?
Yeah I had done it many times as well. It makes me so upset to see that after being trained for thousands of pounds only to be lost. I was so angry at once, I almost broke the computer in one of the libraries I was visiting. It had a sign on it saying the PC is not working and a repair engineer is coming to fix it. I could not help myself and got into a fight with the receptionist and all the people around them. I had so much enough of this disrespect. Gas Engineer, what a joke
” if we are to maintain our global place.” Sandy, sorry, we have long lost our global place so maintaining must be replaced by initiating once again!
Are you joking on this. Of course the UK has lost in the global place, Germans, Americans, Japanese, Chinese,Indian, North Koreans, Brazilian, Danish, Russian, and etc, are all of the forefront of the innovation. Engineering in the UK is a joke with hypocrite politicians just sleeping. I as the 8 award winner of the best UK engineering prizes at age of 22 had left, what else do you expect. I literally trained many engineers in the UK during my university time that without me half of them would have failed. Actually there was a 50% dropping rate. Now the ones I trained are all working in the industry except me who left. Come on 2 months of our work resulted in an invention currently under test for patients accross the UK. And these people among my class were just big mouths who are damaging the already damaged engineering in UK. One guy threw up in the middle of the test. The best engineers in the UK I had seen all were master mind and have already left. One guy I knew who could not wait to leave UK as soon as he finished and these stupid students were mocking him for his knowledge. I had never seen anybody during my life like him and see how good he left because of excellent reputation of UK. In all the countries around the world Engineers get headhunted at their first year of study, in the UK you have to beg for a job. I was given a job out of UK in a matter of few months.
And when IT is called Engineering, obviously it brings engineering down. Software Engineering is not Engineering, it is IT and computing. UK companies are just complaining because they want cheap foreign labour. There are loads of Engineers out there, just they are expensive.
There is no such a thing in the world as Engineering without a degree. I think you do not even know what engineering is all about. You wont be able to practice engineering in all the countries around the world without registration and regstration requires an engineering degree from a qualified university.
Hi,
Did you ever post those survey results? If so please can I have access? I am doing a BAME in STEM festival and it is of interest to me so I can demonstrate the need for our festival.If anyone is interested in finding out more or want to get involved,please contact me on mksink89@gmail.com
Thanks