Women in Tech: Keeping UK Connected During Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic placed immense pressure on the UK's telecommunication systems. As offices closed, bandwidth demands for video conferencing soared, leading services like Netflix to reduce quality and platforms like Zoom to see exponential download increases. Telecoms companies had to rapidly repair, update, and improve infrastructure to meet this unprecedented demand.

Women engineers were at the forefront of these efforts. Anita Josephs, a trainee fibre engineer with Openreach, described the satisfaction of installing fibre for schools and surgeries to improve connectivity. Natasha Carpenter, a Vodafone engineer, discussed upgrading infrastructure with "bigger pipes" to support critical services like the NHS 111 line and e-commerce sites experiencing a surge in orders.

Nicole Curran, an engineer with UK Connect, shared her experience providing broadband to an army base for training and morale, connecting reservists with loved ones. She noted the historical underrepresentation of women in her field, with only two women in her Virgin Media apprenticeship intake of 20. Curran advocates for increased information and encouragement for girls interested in technology and engineering apprenticeships.

Despite progress, statistics from 2019 indicate that only 9% of manufacturing and engineering apprentices were women, with degree-level representation rising to just 16%. While the proportion of women in the engineering industry doubled between 2009 and 2019, it reached only 10.3%. Organizations like Wise are encouraging companies to implement retraining programs to address gender imbalance and support women transitioning into technology and engineering roles, especially amidst expected redundancies.