With a $155 billion pipeline of rail infrastructure projects over the next 15 years in Australia, roughly 70,000 additional workers are needed to deliver the objectives of this mega investment.

With women making up less than a quarter of the present rail workforce of more than 165,000 people, there is opportunity for the Australian rail industry to broaden the talent pool and increase diversity and inclusivity at the workplace.

GHD’s Women in Rail report takes a deep-dive into the Australian rail industry and reveals that making the rail sector more appealing and inclusive for women and other candidates is crucial to delivering the ambitious multi-billion-dollar rail infrastructure program across Australia.

Compiled from a comprehensive survey of students, rail professionals, sector leaders, and employees from its own transport teams, the report makes detailed recommendations on making employment in the rail industry an attractive career option for women.

“With women only making up 24 percent of the rail workforce and a perception of the industry as being manual and labour-intensive, we need to improve the profile of rail as a fulfilling career option, particularly for women,” says GHD’s national rail leader John Cranley.

Lack of awareness of the rail industry, particularly from the point of view of career options, is a major challenge to attracting more women into the sector, the report reveals. While the representation of women in rail in Australia is much higher than in the UK or the US, there is still significant scope to remove barriers and a much longer road to achieve equity.

According to the Australasian Railway Association (ARA), the 70,000 additional jobs range from engineering and trades, to customer service and administration roles. Attracting and retaining women and young people will be key to filling the workforce gap and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the industry.

The survey of Year 9-11 students revealed that they perceived employment in the rail industry as predominantly involving manual labour jobs. The surveyed students associated the rail sector with images of an engineer on railway tracks (93 percent), a person driving a train (75 percent) or engineers checking a signal box (60 percent). Only 1.47 per cent associated an image of a scientist taking a water sample and a person wearing a VR headset with the rail industry.

The situation is no different even at the tertiary level where engineering students say the curriculum contains very little information about how their degree could be applied to the rail industry. With little to no awareness of rail careers, the rail industry remains a niche area with low visibility.

The report makes key recommendations to encourage more women to consider a career in the rail industry, and drive positive change. These include:

Raise rail's visibility and attractiveness as a career
Target young people early
Encourage cross-collaboration between industry and education
Set targets with real accountability and transparency
Foster inclusive cultures and workplaces
Invest in an executive leadership pipeline

“Being in the rail industry today means contributing to solutions that put people and communities at the heart. We have a clear need to raise awareness that the rail industry offers much more than just engineering,” says Rebecca Want, Sydney market leader – transport, GHD.

“Rail is not just the people doing track design, overhead or power design. It’s also people doing urban design, branding for new trains and stations; it’s art, graphic designers, communication professionals. This industry has so much more beyond the technical,” she adds.

GHD’s report also reveals that the rail industry was not the first career choice for 84 per cent of rail professionals. However, 9 out of 10 rail professionals surveyed said they would not leave the industry in the next 5-10 years. While women’s representation in Australia’s rail sector went up from 17% in 2014 to 24% in 2023, only 11% enrolled in rail-related training are women.

Caroline Wilkie, ARA CEO, says the ARA’s Women in Rail Strategy launched in August 2023 aims to foster an inclusive and diverse industry that is recognised as an employer of choice for women.

“Given the unprecedented infrastructure investment pipeline, increasing diversity in rail is critical. Not only is this essential to the long-term sustainability of rail, but it is well known that diversity in the workplace drives improved performance, innovation and better solutions,” says Wilkie.

“While this report focuses on women’s representation in rail, we also recognise that gender identity may not be the only facet that is likely underrepresented in the industry. More work needs to be done to understand representation of First Nations people, people with a disability, neurodivergent people, LGBTQIA+ people, and other minority groups within the rail sector,” Cranley concludes.

Image: Supplied

Branko Miletic

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