Women in engineering

Our remarkable engineers often play leading roles in complex projects. They represent a new generation of excellence not only as engineers, but as pioneers in sustainability and inclusivity.

As part of UN International Women’s Day 2022, we explored some of the biases that hold women back in their field, and what needs to be done to break these biases.

Managing Director for Ramboll in India, Vidya Basarkod (2nd from right), leads a group of colleagues in driving STEM outreach for women and girls in India.

In India, a group of our engineers have inspired the next generation of women in STEM by mentoring colleagues, showcasing career opportunities for women during college roadshows, and partnering with schools to boost career mentoring for girls.

Highlights of local STEM initiatives

To inspire the next generation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths), a group of engineers at our India offices is working to promote equal opportunity for women and help them thrive in STEM-related careers. This includes leadership mentoring for colleagues to prepare them for higher responsibilities, as well as partnering with schools for career mentorship programmes for women and girls.

Our colleagues in the UK have delivered safety and inclusion workshops to over 200 leaders. The workshops helped raise awareness about the challenges our employees face in their working lives, and provided tools to support our leaders as active allies. An example is a menopause guide to break biases on the topic and support employees and line mangers.

We need to provide incentives for companies to promote careers in the construction sector to a younger, diverse generation, while also providing training so more people in decision-making positions are able to see their bias, understand it, and move past it,” Tara Wood, Head of Business Development, Sweden

We want to motivate women and girls to choose an education in STEM, helping them see it is both an exciting and rewarding pathway. To that end, we collaborate with the annual national event in Denmark known as Girls’ Day in Science, as well as engage students in our work. For example, we welcomed 260 students from STEM educations to our annual Student Day events in our Copenhagen and Aarhus offices, and hosted the innovation contest Science Cup at our Esbjerg office.

Across our organisation, we continue to expand our work to attract and retain women in engineering roles. This entails partnering with professional networks such as: The Fest Hub and IntoUniversity, which support students from underprivileged backgrounds getting into STEM careers and higher education; and our corporate partnership with the National Society of Black Engineers, in the US.

“Biases experienced by early-career women are enormously detrimental and impact talent retention. We must bring it to the surface and tackle it head on” - Philippa Spence, Managing Director, UK

Health and safety

Caring for employees is fundamental to Ramboll. Maintaining and improving the safety and well-being of employees is one of our most important tasks. How We Act, our company-wide health, safety, environmental, and quality management system, aims to support these aspirations. It contains policies that define our systematic approach to identifying, managing, and monitoring risks as well as our ongoing commitment to improving our performance.