Young girls are being encouraged to consider a career in auto industry Jaguar Land Rover is offering female students interested in engineering, technology and manufacturing careers a unique insight into the world of work at the UK's largest luxury automotive manufacturer .The 'Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers: Young Women in the Know' course has been developed in partnership with Birmingham Metropolitan College to change outdated perceptions of engineering to encourage more young women to consider engineering and manufacturing careers.
The 28 female students, aged 16-18, will be participating in a week-long programme of events from Monday 18th February at Jaguar Land Rover's manufacturing, design and engineering sites in Gaydon, Whitley, Solihull and Castle Bromwich. They will meet female apprentices, graduates, engineers and managers to find out about their education and career histories and will spend a day on work experience at the Solihull plant. They will also find out about Jaguar Land Rover's apprentice and graduate schemes and participate in workshops on job applications, assessment centres and interview techniques.
Bob Joyce, Jaguar Land Rover Engineering Director, said: "Jaguar Land Rover has ambitious plans for growth and it is engineering talent that will develop the products and technologies that appeal to customers in the future. We believe that the success of our global business - and the UK economy - lies in engineering and innovation.
"We offer a wide range of education programmes with the aim of getting young people excited about engineering and crucially, to encourage them to make the right subject choices at GCSE-level and beyond. The 'Young Women In The Know' course has been developed to encourage female students to consider engineering careers and we hope some of the students on the course today will join Jaguar Land Rover as engineers in the future."
Danella Bagnall, Project Planning and Integration Director at Jaguar Land Rover, added: "I started my career as an apprentice 25 years ago which was a great way of continuing education, developing skills, and getting into industry. I am now a senior engineering manager which demonstrates the excellent career progression opportunities available to women in a modern engineering-led business like Jaguar Land Rover.
"It is a very exciting time to join our business. We are investing more than £2 billion a year in research and development and we need talented young people to deliver new technologies, new applications, new approaches and new ideas. I would thoroughly recommend a career in engineering to girls and hope this programme inspires lots more women to become engineers."
The 'Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers: Young Women in the Know' course is part of the 'Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers' education programme which Jaguar Land Rover runs across the UK to promote STEM subjects and engineering careers.