Is engineering in need of a sex change?

One of the first three people to graduate with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from The Open University is a woman. Nothing unusual about that, you may think, but in fact Gaynor Bickley is one of a surprisingly small minority.

One of the first three people to graduate with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from The Open University is a woman. Nothing unusual about that, you may think, but in fact Gaynor Bickley is one of a surprisingly small minority.

Of the 16,995 people accepted onto engineering degree courses nationally in 2003, 2,279 were women - a little over 13 per cent, according to figures released by the Engineering Council. Women make up less than 6 per cent of graduates with an engineering or technical degree who are working as engineers. And at a time when women are increasing their representation in many professions, the proportion of women entering engineering courses has remained virtually unchanged, at between 13 and 14.5 per cent, since 1991.

Despite The Open University's reputation for breaking down barriers and widening access, it can't - yet - claim to be the shining exception in this case. Out of about 1,600 OU students currently following the study route to a BEng path, only some 120 are female.

Yet the OU's flexible part-time study mode ought to be good news for women, who often find it harder than men to squeeze in study time around their family commitments.

So it has proved for Bickley, 36, who already had an HNC in Mechanical Engineering but was finding her promotion prospects hampered by the lack of a degree. "My life changed when I had my first child and needed a more flexible approach to studying," she said.

Her OU study was sponsored by her employer Rolls-Royce, where she works in software implementation, having recently switched from a role as a procurement engineer.

Women may be avoiding engineering, Bickley suggested, because they consider a wider range of career options than men. "The career prospects are not particularly good in engineering at the moment and it may be if women have more options, they will go and do something else," she said.

The myth that engineering is inseparable from heavy machinery and noisy, dirty environments may also be putting off girls. "Many school leavers do not realise the diversity of engineering jobs that they could do," according to Marie Wallace, an engineer who now works as a licensing officer for the Engineering Council. "Mechanical engineering is only a small percentage of what is available." The most popular engineering courses with women are those that involve computing, followed by electrical/electronic engineering.

The Woman's Engineering Society and WISE, the Women Into Science and Engineering campaign, both argue that the failure to attract more women is bad for the profession which is missing out on talented recruits.

But it also has consequences for the rest of us who rely on products designed and maintained by engineers. "There should be more women in engineering, design engineering particularly," Gaynor Bickley says. "Whenever I have to deal with a child car seat where you need both hands to fasten it and the metal bits get all hot on a sunny day, I think 'this must have been designed by a man'."

The Open University BEng entitles a graduate to apply to the Engineering Council UK for registration as an Incorporated Engineer, or to aim for Chartered Engineer status by taking the MEng. For details ring 0845 300 6090 quoting ALEOE or see www.open.ac.uk