Esther McVey, employment minister launches #notjustforboys

notjustforboysAnd it has our support too!

Employment minister launched a new campaign today to support women to make career choices that are right for them and to try and entice and promote women into broadcasting, construction, science and engineering.

90% of boys in engineering, there are boundaries that need to be pushed– Esther McVey speaking on Daybreak

The government hopes this campaign will help promote girls into fields that are seen traditionally for boys.

Ms McVey will point out that although organisations such as the London Stock Exchange and the Royal Society of Chemistry have recently appointed women to their top jobs after several hundred years of history, the country is still waiting for a number of significant female ‘firsts’ in banking, broadcasting and business.

The #notjustforboys campaign is to shine a light on this issue and to get more women across many of these industries. It is backed by more than 30 leading businesses and individuals and also we at WeAreTheCity support this campaign.

Recent research reveals there are likely to be around 12 million job opportunities opening up in the UK over the next decade, and despite women now choosing to work in record numbers, they are still underrepresented in many of the UK’s jobs growth areas.Esther-McVey

Employment Minister Esther McVey said:

Up and down the country, women of the UK have been staging a quiet revolution – we’re in work in record numbers, with huge inroads into the top professions.

The modern face of women in work in the UK is largely unrecognisable from the choices available to our grandmothers, and as part of our long-term economic plan I want to support even more women make the most of the record vacancies UK businesses are creating.

Who would have believed in 2015 we are still seeing ‘female firsts’ – only last year we had the first female to be President of the Royal Society of Chemistry in nearly 200 years of history.

We’ve only just had the first female CEO of the London Stock Exchange and we’re still waiting for the ‘first’ in many of the UK’s top jobs at organisations like the Bank of England, the BBC and CBI.

Through the #notjustforboys campaign we want to energise young girls and support more women to make the choices that are right for them, and have the security of a regular wage in an industry that’s driving Britain’s growth.

Businesses and individuals supporting the #notjustforboys campaign include:

  • Emer Timmons (President of BT Global Services UK, member of the Women’s Business Council and recent winner of Woman of the Year in the Information Age Women in IT Awards)
  • Kate Russell (Author and Technology Reporter, BBC Click)
  • Belinda Parmar OBE (CEO, Lady Geek)
  • Baroness Lane-Fox (Chair, Go ON UK)
  • Dame Fiona Kendrick (CEO and Chair of Nestlé UK and Ireland)
  • Tottenham Hotspur
  • Unilever
  • BT
  • Microsoft
  • Diageo
  • Opportunity Now
  • National Express
  • Network Rail
  • Nestlé
  • Judith Hackitt CBE FREng (Chair, Health and Safety Executive)
  • Dr Melanie Windridge (Physicist and Science Communicator)
  • Kelly Vere (Laboratory Technician, University of Nottingham)
  • Women’s Engineering Society
  • Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
  • MACE
  • Mitie
  • Be-onsite
  • CITB
  • BCS
  • The Chartered Institute for IT
  • Go ON UK
  • Health and Safety Executive
  • Beonsite
  • Liberata UK
  • WISE

The UK has seen the fastest growth in the number of women in work in the last year out of all G7 economies – there are a record 14.4 million women in work.

There have been nearly 3,500 more women in work every week on average since 2010, boosting the employment rate for women to a record 68.2 per cent.

Read more here

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1 Response
  1. Hmm, will yet another twitter hashtag change the perception of certain male dominated industries? Is this the Conservative’s response to the Pink Buses of Labour? If it gets one more woman into chemistry then I am for it!