17th March 2021 8:40 am 17th March 2021 8:40 am It’s time to step up our efforts to encourage young people from underrepresented groups to consider a career in engineering, writes Engineering UK chief executive Dr Hilary Leevers. Following hot on the heels of National Apprenticeships Week and International Women’s Day earlier this month, I’ve been thinking about what the engineering community can do to improve the balance between male and female apprentices across the UK and the urgency of doing so. We know from our 2019 research report ‘Gender disparity in engineering’ that female under-representation in the engineering workforce is largely due to girls dropping out of educational pathways at every decision point, despite generally performing at least as well as boys in STEM subjects at school.