In June, Jacobs held the first North East Region Women in Nuclear (WiN) event – ‘Developing an Innovative and Sustainable Nuclear Capability’ – at the company’s Stockton-On-Tees office. A wide range of topics were explored at the seminar, from addressing the nuclear skills gap, diversity, supply chain integration to cybersecurity.
The ‘Addressing the Nuclear Skills Gap’ session looked at the key influencers and drivers for change. Jacobs shared key focus areas at a local and national level, including activities to attract young people into engineering through STEM events, programmes to develop talent, and affiliations with higher education training courses.
Loretta Browne, CoLAB Consulting and Executive Board member of WiN UK, discussed the ‘Power of Diversity’ and the nuclear industry’s role in increasing diversity within the workforce. Loretta explained WiN’s mission to achieve gender balance for a sustainable nuclear industry and welcomed the government’s ‘Nuclear Sector Deal’ target of a 40% female workforce by 2030.
In the ‘Supply Chain Integration’ session, PDL Solutions’ Michael Williams and Jacobs’ Andy Leigh, reflected on the collaborative journey the companies have travelled together on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Mentoring scheme, which has enabled PDL Solutions to become one of Jacobs’ preferred suppliers for engineering design and analysis capability in the UK nuclear sector.
Jacobs’ James Yolland evaluated the changing face of the cyber world, with industry’s race to digitize, associated cyber-security risks and how advanced, persistent threats can now infiltrate reality in order to control the physical world around us. The session also reviewed the new generation of holistic enterprise security techniques to optimise protection, resilience and recovery from attacks.
Developing and Innovative and Sustainable Nuclear Capability Seminar Presenters (Left to Right): James Yolland (Jacobs), Michael Williams (PDL Solutions), Anita Lall (Jacobs), Loretta Browne (CoLAB Consulting and Executive Board member of WiN UK), Andy Leigh (Jacobs)
At the end of the seminar attendees took the opportunity to support, inspire and celebrate diverse careers in engineering for girls and young people, and the achievements of women engineers by ‘Raising the Bar’ for International Women in Engineering Day 2018.
Seminar attendees #RaisingTheBar and supporting International Women in Engineering Day #INWED18