The aerospace and defense industries suffer from a widely acknowledged skills deficit due to the struggle to recruit and retain talent—all the more reason then, over and above social equity considerations, to make it clear to 50 percent of the world’s population that the door is wide open to women.
This Friday is International Women in Engineering Day, giving pause to the aviation sector to consider whether it is on the right path. AIN surveyed 20 of the industry’s leading companies and the overriding conclusion was that progress has been made, but there is some way to go, with just under one-fifth of engineering positions typically filled by women at a time when the gender ratio for the overall workforce is generally closer to a quarter.
That said, recent years have seen some high-profile examples of women breaking through the so-called "glass ceiling" to senior engineering leadership positions. For example, in 2021 Sabine Klauke succeeded another woman, Grazia Vittadini, as chief technology officer of Airbus. Vittadini subsequently joined engine maker Rolls-Royce as its CTO.
And there may be more to come. Also at Rolls-Royce, Sophie Chittim is the lead research and technology engineer working on the UK engine maker’s fuel cells and electric propulsion systems. Meanwhile, former Rolls-Royce engineer Riona Armesmith joined electric engine developer MagniX two years ago as the start-up's CTO.
According to Boeing’s 2023 Global Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Report, women accounted for 17.4 percent of the company’s engineering cohort, representing an increase since 2020 from 16.5 percent. Women’s representation in the overall workforce increased from 23.2 percent in 2020 to 24.1 percent in 2022. Over the same period, the proportion of women in management roles crept up by 1.4 percent and by 2.8 percent for production and maintenance roles.
In the report, Boeing said it is boosting investments in early science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. In 2022, around 2.2 million young women and girls participated in STEM education.
Just over a quarter of Raytheon Technologies’ 182,000-strong global workforce are women, and 32.7 percent of that group are executives, with 30.8 percent of those serving at the board level. Those percentages have gradually edged up in recent years.
In 2020, the U.S.-based group reported that 17.8 percent of its approximately 55,000 engineers were women. Last year, women and/or people of color accounted for 45.4 percent of all new employees.
For the past two decades, Raytheon businesses have participated in events such as Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. As part of a broad diversification strategy, it has more recently partnered with the Girls Who Code and Paradigm for Parity organizations, and company representatives sit on the Society of Women Engineers’ Corporate Partnership Council.
Engine maker Pratt & Whitney, which is part of the Raytheon group, has gotten involved in several such initiatives, as well as the Will Rise movement to accelerate the professional advancement of women and the Re-Empower Program, which seeks to help people return to the workforce after taking a career break for reasons such as childcare. It also has invested more than $1.5 billion in its employee scholarship program and backs initiatives to boost learning in STEM subjects.
At Lockheed Martin, the overall representation of women in the workforce has inched up in recent years to 23.3 percent. No gender breakdown of the engineering cohort is available.
The defense giant runs business resource groups and inclusion councils as platforms to support efforts to encourage diversity and opportunity for career advancement. It also is involved in programs such as Girls Inc., and Million Girls Moonshot.
As of last year, women accounted for 23 percent of all BAE Systems employees and the company told AIN it has set a target to increase that proportion to 30 percent by 2030. To achieve the objective, the UK-based company is prioritizing STEM initiatives with, for example, STEM Learning Ambassadors, who currently support about 800 employees and offer work experience to women in roles that usually have the fewest female applicants. In 2022, the company sponsored 15 women to complete an industry-recognized software engineering qualification for free through a partnership with Code First Girls, fast-tracking all of the participants into its graduate scheme.
BAE has signed onto diversity pledge programs such as Women in Defence Charter and the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. Last year, women accounted for 30 percent of its apprentice intake and the company won honors as Graduate Employer of Choice as chosen by female engineering job hunters.