New data from Eurostat has revealed a steady increase in the number of women working as scientists and engineers in the European Union over the twenty-first century.
In 2024, 7.9 million women across the EU worked as scientists and engineers, up from 5.2 million women in 2014 and 3.4 million women in 2008. Across all economic activities, women represented 40.5 percent of scientists and engineers in the EU workforce in 2024.
Women scientists and engineers within the EU workforce were most represented (45.1 percent) in knowledge-intensive services, which include services in computer programming, information science, research and development, and other high-tech fields. In contrast, only 22.4 percent of EU scientists and engineers working in manufacturing industries were women.
Among different EU countries, working women scientists and engineers were most represented in Latvia (50.9 percent), Denmark (48.8 percent), Estonia (47.9 percent), Spain (47.6 percent), Bulgaria (47.3 percent) and Ireland (47.3 percent). They were least represented in Finland (30.7 percent), Hungary (31.7 percent), Luxembourg (32.4 percent), Slovakia (33.6 percent), and Germany (34.6 percent).