Day announced to address gender gap in engineering

The day's aim is to raise the profile of women in engineering and encouraging more female students to consider it as a career. WES said it wanted its focus be the opportunities for women in engineering at a time when it has never been more important to address the engineering skills shortage. It added: "By encouraging girls into engineering careers we will not only be increasing diversity and inclusion – a business imperative – but enabling us to fill the substantial future job opportunities that have been predicted in this sector." Businesses and educational bodies can support the day by arranging visits or talks for local school children and students or by holding a STEM careers event. Female engineers could arrange to speak at schools or colleges, or volunteer as STEM Ambassadors. They are also encouraged to tweet about their job (#whatengineersdo), write a biography for the WES She's an Engineer feature or blog about the work they do on the SOE Female Engineers Forum. National Women in Engineering Day complements Works Management's own campaign – Females in Factories – which aims to recruit 25 female manufacturing champions to visit schools and promote careers in industry. The campaign is also featuring profiles of inspiring female manufacturing employees.