Apprenticeships are failing to deliver a more diverse talent pool in technical professions, according to the government’s Lords spokesperson for women and equality.  

Baroness Tina Stowell of Beeston, a Tory Peer, was speaking this morning at the enei (Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion) conference, 'The enei Provocation'.

“There are too many groups that are under represented in scientific, technical, engineering and mathematical professions,” she says.

Currently one in 10 engineers are women, according to Stowell, but only one in 20 people starting an apprenticeship in engineering are female.

The Baroness also suggests that legislation “is not always the best means or the only means” of creating better workplace diversity, with the Baroness indicating earlier in her speech, that her view applied to other areas of equality such as race.

• For more from the ENEI conference, please see tomorrow’s recruiter.co.uk news bulletin.