In the light of International Women in Engineering Day 2017, ScotRail took the opportunity to enhance female interest and interaction in their firm by inviting 20 female secondary pupils from Bellahouston Academy for a tour around their ScotRail’s Alliance’s Shield Train Depot.
Angus Thom, ScotRail Alliance’s engineering director, showed them around the busy depot where they saw electric trains in for maintenance, cleaning and refurbishment.
Despite the fact many girls don’t always consider engineering as a career choice, the tour around ScotRail’s Train Depot clearly showed the pupils that it was a world away from just oily overalls and heavy machinery and that technology plays a key role in train engineering. Scotrail plan on changing the perception that young women have on engineering roles. Two of Scotrails’s female senior engineering managers Sydea Ghufran and Lynsey McCave joined the pupils on their tour of the depot to answer any questions they had regarding their role and promoting why they should pursue a role in engineering. Syeda, Head of Engineering Projects, enjoyed sharing her experience on the railway and discussed the key issue that young women don’t consider engineering as a career option: “Girls in particular don’t seem to think that engineering is a suitable career for them, despite their achievements in maths and science at school.
The visit was part of a widening reach programme that the ScotRail Alliance is currently undertaking to attract a greater number of female candidates to join not only engineering, but also the wider railway business.
John Gillies, the ScotRail Alliance’s Director of HR, spoke about ScotRail’s investment in securing more women in the workplace throughout the organisation: “Without doubt a train depot is a busy and hectic workplace that offers career opportunities and a rewarding career. We welcome all candidates bringing the correct skills and knowledge to our workforce. We also want to increase the number of female candidates applying to work in all parts of the ScotRail Alliance and the depot visit hopefully demonstrated to the girls that this is a challenging and vibrant environment that they would want to work in.”
Scotland is currently facing a shortage of engineering skills and there are very few female engineers in the STEM industry to fill this gap. I am very passionate about engineering as a profession as it gives you a chance to create new things and develop new ideas to make this world a better place to live and we need more girls to help us do that!”
