'Girls on Track' for motorsport careers

As career opportunities increase for women across the world engineering and its many strands, they are opening up as much as anywhere in the world of motorsport. Integral to that progress is the Girls on Track programme, as programme manager Jenny Fletcher explains...

Uniting Susie Wolff’s ‘Dare to be Different’ initiative (founded in 2016) with the FIA’s ‘Girls on Track’ programme (founded in 2019), Motorsport UK have joined forces with the FIA in the programme, ‘Girls on Track UK’.  

Girls on Track UK holds events to inspire girls and women to both see and believe that there is a rightful and valuable place for them in the motorsport industry. The varied range of opportunities within our sport means there is something for everyone, regardless of your interests, gender and race. Girls on Track UK is proud to be an inclusive environment and welcomes all trans, non-binary, intersex, and gender fluid people who would like to be part of our community. 

We work with schools to offer free events for girls and hold regular online and in-person events for members of our free to join online community for women of all ages. 

It’s no lie that motorsport and the STEM industry as a whole is very male dominated. Currently around 90% of the motorsport workforce are males, leaving only 10% of roles held by other genders. This isn’t a statistic that is reflective of our society and is not conducive to creating a diverse and inclusive space. 

Girls on Track UK not only aims to inspire girls from a young age to see that motorsport and careers in the industry are both viable but also desirable options for them, but we also make that connection between industry and those who want to work in it. The powerful Girls on Track UK community is now being recognised by the industry as a strong pool of talent, creating the pipeline for their future recruitment. To make a high performing workforce, diversity is the key. 

Teachers from events for school girls reported that 98% of teachers said that they strongly agreed that the day was inspirational for their pupils. 

When surveying our community members, of those that now work in the sport, 90% of those asked said that Girls on Track UK had influence their career in motorsport/STEM. 

We are coming up to our 10 year anniversary of the programme next year and aim to celebrate all of the successes that we have seen over the last decade and hope to grow bigger and stronger for the next 10 years to keep making a difference in this space. The chance to change the sport for life.  

If you are a teacher, parent or woman (of any age) who would like to get involved in a schools event or be part of the free Girls on Track UK Community, then you can find out more information about how to get involved on our website. https://girlsontrackuk.org/ From here you can join the community, sign up to our newsletters and follow our social media accounts and find out how you can get involved.  

Motorsport UK is a non-for-profit organisation, so we are looking for commercial partners and businesses to come on board and help us to make the motorsport and STEM industry more diverse. If you want to find out more about how, as a business, you can get involved, please reach out to us at girlsontrack@motorsportuk.org.