Embracing a diverse and inclusive workforce is an important step towards attracting the best talent, Max Fauvet, overseeing aerospace business development at consulting and engineering company Alten, said.

He said his company was recruiting more than 500 people this year, and that it was important to encourage young people as well as more women and a broad mix of nationalities to enter the industry.

Pioneers of Tomorrow

Commenting on Pioneers of Tomorrow, an event being held at the Farnborough Airshow this year to give students, apprentices, graduates and young professionals considering a career in aerospace unprecedented access to the industry, he said: “This is key for us to work with academics, and to get young people at any age to bring them up in the aerospace industry.

“We also work on inclusivity and diversity, we are very big on women in engineering and for us this is a perfect opportunity to attract the next talent.

“We want to attract anyone, regardless of their background.”

Women graduates

He said Alten was aware that there were comparatively few women graduating from university in the engineering sector and that the company was trying to motivate school leavers to choose that career path, including with a mentoring system.

Explaining Alten’s position in the market for those who were contemplating a career in engineering, he said: “There are two types of innovation that Alten works on. The first is supporting the OEMs and airframers in their product innovation; greener aircraft, sustainable fuel, hydrogen, electric.

“The second point is digital aviation; when you think beyond big data… you think about cyber security and how we make aircraft connected. All of that is a new world that we are definitely working on.”

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