Recruit women, urges engineers’ first female leader
Britain desperately needs to persuade hundreds of thousands of women to take up engineering to help the country exploit new technologies that could transform our lives. Failure would damage the na tion's capacity to meet the challenges of the future, the new president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Naomi Climer, warned last week.
Climer, the first female president of the IET, the world's largest engineering institution, told the Observer that Britain was facing a serious shortfall in engineers. Figures suggest that the country will need to recruit almost two million over the coming decade, she said. Advances in robotics, software design, renewable energy, materials and many other fields now offer to bring major improvements to Britain - but will need the problem-solving skills of engineers to make the best use of them. However, at the same time the nation is facing a serious shortfall in numbers entering the profession.
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