Rachael Hoyle an engineer for BAE Systems, joined the company’s apprentice scheme straight from school five years ago. “I knew I wanted to do something using maths and science, which I enjoyed at school, and when I learnt about the BAE scheme where you get academic qualifications as well as vocational experience, that clinched it for me.”

Hoyle, 21, worked in several departments before opting for a career in military air solutions, based in Warton, Lancashire. She is an applied vehicle technology structures engineer responsible for monitoring stresses on Typhoon fighter planes during flights, using computer programmes.

She has completed the first year of a degree in mechanical engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University, with BAE paying the fees and giving her time off to attend classes.

Such flexibility is important to Julie Smyth, a senior lawyer in military air solutions. She has been with the company for ten years and is the lead lawyer for the business unit that designs, develops and produces military aircraft. Since the birth of her son in 2002, she has worked part time, and now works four days a week, with the school holidays off.

Her job encompasses everything from drawing up contracts when providing aircraft to customers, to working on legal issues around property and employment.

“I always knew I didn’t want to stay in a law firm. I wanted to do a variety of things and work with lots of different people,” she says. She also enjoys the wow factor of working with military aircraft such as Nimrods. “They’re very complex and they’re very impressive."

Rosalind Murray is another woman at BAE with a complex job. She is an operations transformation manager in submarine solutions, at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, which means she looks for ways to make submarine building more efficient. “The key is people skills,” she says. “The job might be about big bits of metal, but in order to change things you have got to know how people work.”

Along with a colleague, Murray has set up a women’s network at the company and is running a survey to see what women want from a network.

Smyth and Hoyle are also spreading the word to encourage women. Smyth mentors engineering graduates and Hoyle has given presentations about engineering at local secondary schools. “Young women can offer a lot to science and engineering. If we can create a diverse environment perhaps we can move the industry forward,” she says. “Maybe there are women out there who would make great engineers.”

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