While workplace diversity in the UK rail industry has made great strides since I joined two decades ago, there is still much to be done to improve gender balance. Despite rail's amazing growth, creating manifold job opportunities, women are still underrepresented within the workforce. The industry struggles to attract women to consider a career in the sector and, consequently, there remains a deficit of talent and diversity of skills. According to the recently published Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, just 13 per cent of the workforce is female. Additionally, very few women are in senior decision-making roles. We also know that there are still old-fashioned preconceptions around gendered occupations and that the sector is simply not seen as an exciting career route by girls. However, thanks in a large part to the work of Women in Rail (WR) in the last few years, the rail industry has become aware of these challenges and substantial progress has been made to tackle this perception and redress the gender imbalance.
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