It is National Science Week this week. It runs from 11th – 20th March and this year’s topic is growth. Why am I telling you about British Science Week on a Careers blog? Well BSW is 10 days of focusing on careers within Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and in the past 30 days alone there were over 150,673 jobs advertised in these sectors. So, STEM is kind of a big thing in the world of careers.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) have been sectors largely dominated by men in previous years. With International Women’s Day last week, it is important that we start to break down the stereotypes in these industries.
Interesting facts about the STEM labour market (Don’t forget LMI is an important part of meeting your Gatsby Benchmarks!)
The top employers in 2021 in STEM were:
- The NHS
- Amazon
- BAE Systems
Most in demand STEM occupations are:
- Software Developer (31,606 jobs)
- Web Developer (6,630 jobs)
- Computer Support Specialist (6,572 jobs)
The education subject areas in most demand for STEM jobs are:
- Engineering
- Computer Science
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering
To challenge stereotypes!
- Women make up 14.5% of all Engineers
- This is an increase of 27.5% and actually translates to 721,586 women working in Engineering.
The average salary for someone in a STEM career is £46,400
There are so many resources you can use for British Science Week. Here are a few of my favourites to get you started.
British Science Week activity packs (full of great ideas and suitable from EYFS through to Secondary!) https://www.britishscienceweek.org/plan-your-activities/activity-packs/
Women In Science and Engineering have some excellent links to apprenticeships as well as a section called ‘she’s an engineer’ which has some fabulous case studies to help challenge stereotypes in STEM careers. https://www.wes.org.uk/content/shes-engineer-1
British Science Week has a whole section on smashing stereotypes there are some great case studies on everything from disability, ethnicity and how to combine a love of art and science! https://www.britishscienceweek.org/plan-your-activities/smashing-stereotypes/
The National Farming Union are also running some live lessons next week just for British Science Week. If you know my you’ll know I had a mid life crisis and returned to education to study Agriculture so I will be joining these lessons to see what the NFU are doing! Links can be found here https://www.britishscienceweek.org/join-in-the-nfus-live-lessons/
As usual if you find this information useful and run some activities for British Science week please tag me on social media as I love to see what you are doing. All of these activities will help you as you work towards the Gatsby Benchmarks and if you have any gaps or are struggling to write and implement a careers programme and policy please drop us a line and we would be more than happy to help!