Record breaking intake of female engineering students at Falkirk campus

The 19 women, from Falkirk and beyond, have now begun their apprenticeships at FVC’s Falkirk Campus and are covering a wide number of areas in the industry including welding and fabrications, instrumentation, power distribution and mechanical engineering.

Employed by firms like Ineos, TechnipFMC, Scotrail and Petroface, the apprentices will spend their first year at college learning the ropes.

Dr Ken Thomson, Principal of Forth Valley College, said: “It is great to see a record number of women engineering modern apprentices start with us this year and we hope this will inspire even more women to think about engineering as a career.

“As a college we have been taking this message, which runs in parallel to the Scottish Government’s Gender Strategy, to schools and across the wider community for many years and we know our industry partners have been doing the same.

“We hope intakes like this will become the norm from now on.”

ECITB, the statutory skills body for the engineering construction industry, sponsors the training of the MAs at FVC on behalf of various partner companies and also saw their largest ever enrolment of first year women MAs, with four starting on their Oil and Gas Technical Apprentice Programme.

Tamara Janssen (23), who works for TechnipFMC, said: “It’s absolutely brilliant to be a part of the largest intake of women MAs at Forth Valley College.

“Things are changing and I am really happy to get a job with TechnipFMC as they are a great company to work for.”

Rebecca McMillan (23), who works for Petrofac, added: “This record intake is an important moment as it will promote the need to get more women into the industry.

“I read the case studies before I applied for my job and they inspired me.

“I hope any young women reading this story and seeing the photos will be inspired to think about a career in engineering.”

Visit www.forthvalley.ac.uk to find out more information on college courses available.