The recent statistics from Lord Patrick Vallance revealing the diversity within the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology’s (DSIT) workforce are to be welcomed.
The fact that women take up 58% of the science and engineering roles in the department, compared to 42% of men should not be ignored and I confess that I share Chi Onwurah MP, Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s surprise when I read them.
Any department within a male-dominated sector like engineering that shows a willingness to embrace a gender balance should be highlighted, however, let’s not get ahead of ourselves as the science and engineering roles make up just 11% of the department’s workforce.
Additionally, as the figures were a percentage, the actual number of women working in the department could still be low. We also know that even though a government department may have more women working in engineering and science roles than men, the picture across the industry is very different and needs addressing.
According to WISE, just 10.9% of professional engineering roles are taken by women, and across the wider STEM sector 26% of roles are held by women. This is incredibly low in a sector that employs millions of people across the UK.
In her response, Chi Onwurah MP, noted the number of non-white employees holding science and engineering roles within the DSIT was low. This is perhaps slightly more reflective of what’s happening in the industry. Only 9% of UK engineers are from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds although an average of 29.9% of engineering university graduates are from BME backgrounds.
There is a significant underutilisation of highly qualified women and minority ethnic professionals in the UK engineering sector and significant barriers that prevent them from pursuing a career in science and engineering. One of the biggest is the career-break curse - bias within the recruitment system against a recent lack of experience.
Around the UK, millions of people are not working largely due to caring responsibilities, and women bear the brunt of this burden. Many of these people have not taken a career break through personal choice yet, when they are ready to return to work, they face a penalty for the gap on their CV.
Many apply for hundreds of jobs and receive no feedback or even a response and are left with broken confidence. In our recent STEM Returners Index, 59% of respondents had been out of the workforce for less than two years, 30% said they had applied for 50 or more jobs, and 46% said they received feedback never or hardly at all.
These talented and skilled professionals are victims of the career-break curse and left with no choice other than to leave science and engineering and take their expertise, talent and skills elsewhere.
But if science and engineering organisations, including the DSIT, were more open to returners they would be able to tap into a rich talent pool that would undoubtedly benefit their business and improve the diversity among their workforces.
Not only do they need to embrace returners by updating their recruitment practices, but they could also run tangible programmes that recruit people into roles that will enable them to thrive. There are many mentoring and career coaching programmes available but few that result in a role for the individual. Instead, they rely on that individual to take the learnings and keep applying for roles on their own and after you’ve done that a hundred times, it’s safe to say the enthusiasm understandably wavers.
But, a programme that has roles for the candidate to complete, with an option to become permanent, provides a route to return to work for the candidate and allows the organisation to gain a skilled employee looking to prove themselves. We are proud to have been able to return more than 500 professionals to the industry they love through this way of working. We see it as the best way of ensuring the science and engineering sector opens its doors to returners, gaining valuable expertise while making their workforce more diverse.
There is still a long way to go and more of our biggest and best engineering organisations and government departments should be doing more to improve diversity.
If they are truly committed to fostering diversity and inclusion, they must lead by example—not just in representation but in action.
By actively supporting returners through structured employment pathways, we can help break down the barriers that keep skilled professionals, particularly women and minority ethnic individuals, from re-entering the workforce. In doing so, it would not only strengthen its talent pool but also set a powerful precedent for wider society to follow.
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