This International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March, Transport for London (TfL) is encouraging women to consider joining the transport sector and engineering roles through a number of events and activities.

While progress has been made to encourage more women into these sectors, TfL is working hard to continue making the industries more inclusive and representative, particularly in operational roles.

TfL is actively working to improve representation at all levels within its business through a range of different interventions. These include providing and promoting initiatives that encourage women to enter the transport sector, as well as addressing any barriers that prevent women from advancing to senior and higher-paying positions, particularly in operational areas.

Today, TfL is hosting the final of its schools challenge, Innovate, which has seen students design an innovation that could help TfL deliver on its vision of being a strong green heartbeat for London. The winning innovation will be announced at today’s ceremony and will include a panel discussion hosted by senior women leaders from TfL and the engineering sector to mark International Women’s Day. They will discuss their experiences of working in transport, to inspire more young people and particularly girls to consider careers in transport and engineering.

FM Conway Image – Female construction workers for FM Conway
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The London Transport Museum is hosting a Museum Late: Women on the Move today, which will spotlight the jobs women do to keep London moving, the journeys they have taken to get there, and will explore women’s diverse experiences of travelling and working in the capital.

TfL’s efforts to encourage more women to consider careers in transport and engineering are ongoing and throughout March, TfL’s internal Women’s Colleague Network Group is hosting several events to encourage more women to seek new opportunities in more male-dominated areas such as engineering and technology.

Last year, TfL launched the ‘Women in Bus and Coach’ initiative to help share expertise and develop solutions to ensure a career in the bus and coach industry is attractive to women of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities. Several commitments to encourage women to join transport and engineering are in progress and the network will launch six new internship places specifically for women, this summer.

TfL’s supplier skills team have also been actively working with suppliers to increase the number of women working in transportation, engineering and construction sectors. Later this year up to 20 women will be given the opportunity to experience working within these sectors through TfL’s support of a Women into Transportation and Engineering pre-employment programme (WiTnE).

TfL is also actively supporting women’s progression into senior management roles by launching a new ‘Getting ready for Senior Leadership’ programme designed to help better prepare internal colleagues for a move into senior leadership.

Deputy Mayor for Transport, Seb Dance, said: “The Mayor and TfL are committed to diversifying and strengthening TfL’s workforce and are working hard to attract more women to the transport and engineering sectors.

“This year TfL is marking International Women’s Day with a number of events and activities, which we hope will encourage more women into these exciting and vital industries.”