Engineering, the possibility to make a difference

International Women in Engineering Day is an international awareness day hosted each year to raise the profile of women in engineering and focus attention on the amazing career opportunities available to girls in an exciting industry.

"This day highlights two critical needs – our need for engineers and our need for a more diverse workforce. For many years now, we have been aspiring as a company to mirror the diversity in the societies in which we work." – Pia Höök, heading up Diversity and Inclusion at Skanska says.

To mark this day we decided to highlight some of the amazing female engineers across Skanska to explore why they became engineers, what is most interesting about their work, and the value they see that they bring to society.

Here Chelsea Cresci, Lisa Wiklund and Stephanie Keay speak about why they entered the field in the first place:

"We need a diverse workforce to fully understand the needs of our customers and end-users. In addition we know that having more diverse teams, in particular from a gender perspective, makes us more innovative and competitive." – Pia Höök says. The statistics however, show that less women are entering into science and math’s subjects in school. According to the UNESCO groundbreaking report Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM, only 35% of STEM students in higher education globally are women, and differences are observed within STEM disciplines. This is something we need to change by building awareness amongst young people about the opportunities available.

Engineers solve some of the biggest challenges of our time

As an engineer, you often get to work with complex problems that can effect society. Chelsea Cresci, Lisa Wiklund and Stephanie Keay share some of the ways they see their job bringing value to the people and the places that they are part of creating.

Making progress

Although we have a way to go to see gender parity in the construction and development industry, progress is being made. "We as a company are far from gender equal in terms of representation. However, since 2012 we have made steady progress, in particular on senior positions. In our four most senior levels within the organization, we have increased the percentage of women in positions from 13% to 22% women." – Pia Höok says .

Some advice for those thinking of entering into the construction industry

Are you thinking about taking the leap into construction? Our three engineers offer some advice: