Scotrail recruits women with driving ambition

Train operator First ScotRail has launched a recruitment drive to attract more female drivers.

While women account for just 3.2% of train drivers across the UK, in Scotrail the figure is even lower - a mere 21, or 2.3%, of its 900 drivers are female.

Managing director Mary Dickson - one of only four women at the helm of the UK's 23 train companies - said the company will "proactively encourage" women and people from ethnic minorities to apply for jobs, in order to "improve the balance of the workforce".

"The posts are open to both men and women, but we want to make the workforce as diverse as possible," she added.

Rail union ASLEF praised the initiative. Its equality adviser, Sharon Allen, explained that, although there may be no shortage of women who are tempted to become train drivers by the terms and conditions, they "have been under-represented in the past because there has been a queue of other staff, like conductors, wanting to become drivers, and most of them are still men".

For details of the latest pay deal at First Scotrail, see "5.7% pay rise puts Scotrail drivers on the right track" elsewhere in this issue.