International Women's Day 2022: Greater Anglia wants more female train drivers
Currently only 10% of their drivers are female
It's International Women's Day today, and Greater Anglia are looking to celebrate by recruiting more female train drivers.
Currently, less than 10% of the company's train drivers are women, and Lucy Wright, a spokesperson for Greater Anglia says it's not enough: "That's something that we really would like to increase.
"We're seeing more and more people applying for these roles over time, but it's something that we really want to happen now, sooner rather than later."
Train driving, she says, is a good long-term career: "We often find that people who choose to become trained drivers do stay in the role for a long time. It's not something that people do for six months and move on...
"So it's a really good career choice, especially for women. We want women to understand that and believe that and consider it as a career choice.
"I still think that when people think of a train driver, they still think of men and we want that to change. We want people to realise that it's a career for everybody, regardless of their gender."
She says it's part of the company's larger plan to achieve gender equality in the business: "We have got a goal that we would like to achieve an equal gender balance across our entire workforce by 2025.
"We really hope that this will go some way to help us achieve that."
At the moment, Greater Anglia's workforce consists of 75% men: "Currently one quarter of our workforce is female.
"It's better than it was, but it's certainly not where we want it to be, there's definitely more work to be done."
If people are interested in applying, Lucy's advice would be to go for it: "Anone who's passionate about the railway, if you're thinking about it, get in touch, apply, ask questions.
"It's a really good job to have."