Record numbers of women in STEM, says report from FE News

The future of STEM is bright, says a new report from FE News published last week.

In the UK, there has been a 31% increase in entries from women and girls to STEM A-levels between 2010 and 2019.

And whilst women are getting interested in STEM at a younger age, this interest is being acted upon. The increase in University admissions is shown to be even steeper.

The number of women accepted onto full-time STEM undergraduate courses increased by 50.1% in the UK between 2011 and 2020. Equally, the proportion of women entering full-time undergraduate courses taking STEM subjects increased from 33.6% to 41.4%.

From University onwards, an entrepreneurial spirit is feeding into the careers of many women in STEM.

In 2019/20 women accounted for 11.4% of STEM starts, up from 8.8% in 2017/18. Though these changes are small, the ripple effects this will have across science and technology industries as well as the UK economy cannot be understated.

These figures point to hopeful change in an industry that is particularly important right now, both economically and societally.