Research carried out by the global engineering giant found that 43% of those enrolled on its graduate programmes and 36% on its apprenticeship schemes are female.
The company hopes to achieve 50/50 gender parity in recruitment by 2025 through its new Early Careers initiative, as part of a drive to build an innovative and diverse culture.
Joanne Gogerly, head of Siemens Professional Education UK and North West Europe, said the digital revolution in the industry offers an opportunity to build a better gender balance in engineering and technology companies.
She told HR magazine: “We are driving this change by making equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) a core focus to enable women to succeed in every kind of role, from management and manufacturing to projects, sales and service.”
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Gogerly explained Siemens will be using inclusive language in recruitment advertising, using more diverse recruitment platforms, and sharing more inspirational stories of women in the company to bust myths about modern engineering and attract more women to engineering roles.
She said: “The UK still languishes amongst the lowest when it comes to the percentage of female engineering professionals in Europe, yet industry needs the talent, skills and experience of women more than ever.
“By improving recruitment methods, Siemens can play its part on bridging this gender gap.”
Valerie Todd, HR director for Siemens UK and Ireland, said technology is traditionally a very male-dominated industry and the company wants to address and change this stereotype.
Today, Todd said Siemens employs 8,700 people in the UK, of which 79% are men.
“Siemens is not alone in finding improvement in gender balance painfully slow. But we are working hard to address it.
“We recognise that we must resolve this imbalance of women in our organisation, continue to invest in our people and work through our strategy to attract and retain women at all levels in our business.”
Todd added that gender and diversity initiatives put in place across Siemens are already beginning to improve the representation of women in our organisation.
Natalie Gristwood joined the graduate programme and is now an industrial security engineer where she supports Siemens’ customers in assessing and improving cybersecurity at their plants.
She said: “I was always good at mathematics and physics, but I didn’t realise until I was in Sixth Form and attended a careers fair that I wanted to pursue engineering.
“Now there’s no looking back. I enjoy my work and I’ve had some interesting experiences, especially as there’s been a thrust in my line of work during the pandemic."
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