Rail Supply Group
The Big Rail Diversity Challenge
The Rail Supply Group aims to strengthen the capability and competitiveness of the UK rail supply chain to grow business at home and abroad.
The RSG fully supports this event as part of its commitment to see a more diverse workforce. The Big Rail Diversity Challenge will deliver the Women in Rail undertaking by showing that gender-diverse teams raise awareness for women working across the rail industry and the business benefit attained when companies improve gender balance.
The rail industry is struggling to recruit sufficient numbers into critical roles, such as systems engineers, signal designers, project managers, commercial managers and trainers. The sector particularly fails to attract women into engineering-related roles; gender diversity figures are unacceptable, with women numbering a mere 4% of railway engineers compared to 6% of the current UK engineering workforce and 12% across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related sectors.
This is part of a broader challenge across engineering sectors. It is prevalent in every aspect of the skills pipeline; from attracting students to enrol in STEM subjects at school, to encouraging engineering graduates and apprenticeships to come into the sector, to creating potential future industry leaders and front-line supervisors
