Cavan woman promoting engineering as career choice on International Women's Day

A Cavan woman, who is one of Irish Water’s female engineers, is encouraging girls and young women to consider a career in engineering this International Women’s Day.

Georgina O’Reilly is Asset Operations Lead with Irish Water and has been an engineer for 20 years.

International Women’s Day falls during Engineers Week this year and, with an Engineers Ireland report highlighting that only 13% of engineering graduates in 2017/2018 in Ireland were women, Irish Water is using the week to celebrate female engineers and promote engineering as a career choice for girls. 

Throughout Engineers Week, Irish Water is showcasing female engineers, like Georgina, who are at various stages of their careers and who are working in different engineering roles within the sector. Irish Water is also increasing the visibility of female engineers and promoting engineering as a career for girls through a programme of school visits, site tours and career talks during the week.
Speaking about life as an engineer, Georgina says: “Your job is never mundane! There are so many types of jobs and projects, and they all come with different challenges and the chance to work with new teams. Your work is always changing and can bring you anywhere."
Her advice for girls leaving school: “Don’t be afraid, go for it! College starts everyone out at the basics, so there’s no need to worry if you didn’t do all the topics previously. If you like the subjects such as maths, science and technical subjects or even if you have a creative side or you’ve always wanted to know how things work engineering is a good career choice for you. And there are so many avenues engineering can bring you down.”  

Irish Water is delighted to be promoting Engineers Week again this year and staff across the country are visiting schools, hosting site tours and speaking about their careers in the water industry and highlighting the size and scale of the work in safeguarding Ireland’s water for the future. For further information on the range of activities being organised by Irish Water as part Engineers Week please visit www.water.ie/engineersweek