“Let’s TWIST” (Train Women in Science and Technology), a careers service run by Bradford and Ilkley Community College, offers women advice on careers in the male dominated fields of science, technology, engineering and construction. Women account for just 6 per cent of those employed in technology and engineering in the Bradford area, and none of the girls who left school in 19945 went into skilled engineering.

The project will be run in partnership with institutions in other European countries. It hopes to welcome Portuguese women welders to the college and visit France to see how women builders are trained. Project coordinator Annette Williams said: “Women need targeted careers information, role models and workplace environments which encourage them to believe it’s possible to succeed in occupations dominated by men.”