A DESIGN engineering company based in Skipton is turning the industry norm on its head by employing more women than men in its design team.

Managing director of Chelker Technology Neil Kernot has vowed to continue challenging gender inequality in engineering following the release of figures by the the Institute of Engineering and Technology that show only nine per cent of engineers in the UK are female - the lowest figure in Europe.

Neil said: "Let’s show youngsters how interesting a career in engineering can be and then recruit them at a time when their drive, energy and enthusiasm are at a peak; as they graduate from university.

"We don’t have a positive discrimination policy, we are just open-minded. We offer a pleasant working environment, scope to be creative and flexible working hours, and that helps a lot.

"We have an interesting mix of projects. It’s not all about machinery - we have a portfolio that includes consumer product design, but we do lots of ‘hard’ engineering too - automation, robot tooling and special purpose machinery.”

The company, based at Swadford Street, now has more than 50 per cent of female staff actively working in engineering design.

Neil added: "Admittedly, historically it‘s been hard to recruit women, but given that there is a shortage of engineers generally, it’s even more important that we encourage smart women to join the profession.

"It is an exciting, rewarding and creative career and I support any strategies that actively encourage and enable more women into engineering.”