05.12.2017

Nifty female engineers

Niftylift has held a Women in Engineering Day at its Milton Keynes headquarters and manufacturing plant.

Aimed at female students in Years nine, 10 and 11 from the local community, more than 60 students and teachers attended the event, which the company hosts every year or two.

The event offered the girls a unique opportunity to learn about the different career paths available within the field of engineering, while highlighting the fundamental role engineers play in society. The afternoon included tours of Niftylift’s manufacturing facility, engineering themed activities as well as talks from Niftylift’s female staff members, as they described their jobs and told their personal stories of how they became engineers.
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Students working on one of the project workshops

The main point of the day, is aimed at encouraging female students to take up engineering, and at the same time overcome a shortage of engineers in the UK. At GCSE level, there is little difference between the number of boys and girls taking Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects, but this changes as they get older, with the number of females taking science related subjects at A Level dropping to around 30 percent, and then 16 percent at university. By the time they start work this falls further still, with only nine percent of the engineering workforce being female, with only six percent formally registered as engineers and technicians.
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The day included a tour of the facility

Niftylift product support engineer Jane Harbige said: “Not many girls in the UK see engineering as an opportunity. It is our responsibility as women engineers to show that if you are creative, proactive, enjoy problem solving or thinking of different and better ways of doing things, then engineering is a great choice for a very exciting and rewarding career.”

Emma Pearson, of Shenley Brook End School added: “Our students thoroughly enjoyed the event and we have even had feedback from parents about how thrilled they were that the students had the chance to take part in something like this, so thank you for organising.”
The folllowing video features excepts and comment from the day.


Vertikal Comment

Niftylift has held days like this on a regular basis over the past few years and works closely with local schools and colleges. While this effort is exemplary, it also serves its own self-interest as young imaginative minds come up with new ideas and concepts and it helps develop a pool of local talent. Other companies would do well to take a look at the programmes the company operates in order to help establish their own programmes for both male and female students. If all companies followed this example the industry would solve the current shortage of skilled technical staff.