Promoting Inclusion & Diversity
Inclusion & Diversity
An important part of the people working group is the interaction with schools, colleges and universities to inspire young people to understand the variety and rewards that a STEM career can bring. We aim to promote the careers and opportunities available within the naval defence enterprise as a key focus.
STEM Returners
Our STEM Returners programme has welcomed over 100 engineers back to the industry and positively increased diversity. Of our career returners, 46% have been female (compared to an engineering-sector average of 12%) and 28% have been from minority ethnic backgrounds (compared to an engineering average of 9%)
Encouraging Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers
We are proud of our partnership with the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK) who are working with us to build on our attraction and engagement proposition with industry partners and academia.
AFBE-UK provides support and promotes higher achievements in education and engineering particularly among students and professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The UK as a whole has a long standing history of engineering achievement, however, the UK engineering sector is currently experiencing a shortage of skilled professionals. Only 9% of UK engineers are from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds although an average of 29.9% of engineering university graduates are from BME backgrounds. The proportion of UK citizens from ethnic minority communities is projected to reach between 20 and 30 percent by 2050.
AFBE-UK works to increase the number of ethnic minority people who pursue a career and have successful careers within the engineering industry. They promote diversity in engineering and technology through programmes and activities which are led by exceptional professionals and leaders in the engineering industry and are designed to bring about meaningful change, sustainable growth and development and a lasting positive impact to the UK.