Female engineering graduates start to redress the gender imbalance

The gender imbalance looks like it might be levelling out in an unexpected profession: the traditionally male-dominated field of engineering. The University of Sydney’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies has experienced a steady increase in the number of female students enrolling and graduating over the last decade.

“While Engineering and IT student numbers have increased across the board, ten years ago the University had as few as 50 female engineering graduates. Last year we doubled that figure,” said Dr Tim Wilkinson, Associate Dean (Education).

“This year, the faculty is anticipating well over a hundred female graduates.”

Isobel, Merrilyn and Rebecca James are all engineering students at the University of Sydney

Although the number of women graduating as engineers has increased, the proportion of women to men working in the industry still leaves much to be desired: while 20% of engineering graduates are female, only 10.5% of practising engineers are women. The University of Sydney says this is occurring despite continuing efforts of academic institutions and employer interventions to address the gender gap.

Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies Professor Archie Johnston said the Faculty runs a number of programs to encourage female high school students to consider a career in engineering and IT, such as the Girls’ Programming Network workshop. Participants develop games, learn about digital media and create phone apps.

While acknowledging the numbers are encouraging, Professor Johnston says this should not breed complacency.

“We still need to focus on increasing the number of school students taking higher levels of mathematics and sciences to underpin growth in all of the engineering qualifications,” he said.

“And every effort must be continued to further lift the rates of women enrolling in engineering and IT undergraduate programs at Australian universities.”