Top 50 Women in Engineering (WE50)

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) has announced the fourth iteration of the Top 50 Women in Engineering (WE50) campaign in 2019. Building on the success of the 2016, 2017 and 2018 campaigns, WES is looking to increase the reach, profile and engagement to encourage young women into engineering.

WES is delighted to be launching the theme for the 2019 Top 50 Women in Engineering in Apprenticeships Week, as this year’s Top 50 Women in Engineering will be Current or Former Apprentices. Once again, the competition will follow a public nominations process from which the top 50 will be selected.

While women make up around 14% of engineers in the UK, just over 7% of engineering apprentices are female. By selecting theTop 50 Women in Engineering: Current or Former Apprentices as its theme for 2019, WES aims to highlight the terrific opportunities that engineering apprenticeships offer women. Engineering Apprenticeships provide an alternative route to a career in engineering and female engineering apprentices have the same access to career progression as those who have followed the degree route.

In 2018 there were over 170 nominations for the Top 50 Women in Engineering – Returners and Transferrers.

Full details of the criteria nominees will need to satisfy for the 2019 awards can be found on the WE50 hub on the International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) website: www.inwed.org.uk/we50.

Nominations should focus on the criteria and any other reasons why the nominee, who can self-nominate, should be considered. Nominees do not have to meet all criteria. The aim is to be inclusive and to highlight and celebrate women who have gone beyond what is expected in the sector or discipline of engineering and allied sciences, technology and mathematics.

The nominations launch on 8 March 2019, International Women’s Day, and close on 8 April 2019. The awards will be presented at a June ceremony in London, in tandem with WES’ annual global campaign International Women in Engineering Day (INWED).

WES will manage the nomination and judging process, and has appointed Dawn Fitt, WES Past President, IEng MIET FWES FRSA, former apprentice, winner of the 1992 Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award and Engineering Apprenticeship Training Coordinator at Bedford College, as the Head Judge of this year’s WE50.