ICE Connects: growing the Women in Fellowship network

Shifting the Dial on Fellowship Diversity

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) established its Connects: Women in Fellowship initiative in 2021 to tackle the historic underrepresentation of women at Fellowship level—the highest professional grade, denoting exceptional leadership and contribution in civil engineering.

Progress has accelerated recently: by March 2025, female Fellow numbers had risen 56% since the programme's start, climbing further to a 72% increase by late 2025. This growth stems from targeted networking, mentoring, sponsorship, and visibility efforts, including exhibitions showcasing female Fellows' achievements and regular global online and in-person events.

Yet the absolute figures remain stark. As of early 2024, women made up roughly 6.8% of over 5,000 Fellows, with numbers around 357 at that point; even with gains, the proportion hovers well below female representation in overall ICE membership or younger cohorts (where women reach nearly 23% under 40). This lag at the top matters because Fellows often guide policy, major projects, and professional standards in an industry central to the UK's £ trillions in planned infrastructure investment through 2030s.

Non-obvious tensions include the persistence of misconceptions about what a 'typical' Fellow looks like—older, male, long-career—which the initiative explicitly counters, but cultural inertia in sponsorship and application processes slows change. Meanwhile, the wider UK engineering sector saw female workforce share slip from 16.5% in 2022 to 16.9% in 2025, suggesting gains at senior levels may not yet reverse broader pipeline issues like retention after mid-career or on-site barriers.

High-profile milestones, such as the youngest women achieving Fellowship (at ages 28-30 in 2025-2026 cases), highlight accelerating individual breakthroughs but also how rare such visibility remains, reinforcing the need for sustained networks to normalise diverse leadership.