How do we attract your daughters into infrastructure?
With so much career opportunity across infrastructure we need make sure that we’re attracting a group of talented young people that reflects our increasingly diverse society, says HS2's Beth West.
There is now a substantial evidence base – such as McKinsey’s report from January 2015: Why Diversity Matters – that demonstrates that companies who have a diverse workforce outperform those who are less diverse in most performance indicators.
The infrastructure industry has been relatively slow to pick up on this, but the good news is that we are now starting to have the conversation in the industry about why diversity matters.
"Too many of our best and brightest young people, women and men, are being attracted to other sectors so we need to be better at setting out our stall to this next generation."
As an industry based in engineering, we obviously need more women engineers. But the infrastructure industry is not just about the people on site wearing hard hats, as only 50 per cent of people working in the industry are undertaking site work. The sector as a whole needs more diversity.
I’m not an engineer – but I’ve worked in infrastructure for the past 20 years because I’m passionate about how access to good infrastructure can boost economies and change lives for the better. But unfortunately we can’t do this to the best of our ability if the industry doesn’t reflect society as a whole.
Things are changing; unlike at the beginning of my career, I’m usually not the only woman in the room anymore. At HS2 Ltd now 33 per cent of engineers we employ are women and a third of our Executive Directors are women. But change is slow and there is still a lot more to do across the industry to train, recruit and retain more female staff.
Too many of our best and brightest young people, women and men, are being attracted to other sectors so we need to be better at setting out our stall to this next generation. It is particularly important to show girls successful female role models in senior roles to which they can aspire.
"We need to work together to collaborate with schools and get the message out there that the engineering industry is a great place to work."
We know that 75 per cent of students have a better idea of what they want to do for a career after they’ve had the opportunity to talk to employers, so we need to work together to collaborate with schools and get the message out there that the engineering industry is a great place to work – and a great place for women to work.
There are many future opportunities, and with a significant population working in infrastructure nearing retirement, we need make sure that we’re attracting large numbers of talented young people into our industry. And for real success, that’s a group of young people that reflects our increasingly diverse society.