The ASLEF union’s General Secretary Mick Whelan wrote to all Train Operating and Freight Operating Companies in October 2017, sharing the union’s concerns about how the lack of diversity within the driver grade had been slow to materialise, and was falling further behind other traditionally white-male dominated industries.
The stereotype of what makes a train driver - what was once many boy’s dream career - has been a very strong one. It took until 1979 for there to be the first female train driver in the UK. Trailblazer Karen Harrison, who went on to become an active union member and campaigner for women in the rail industry, didn’t think much of the culture of the time, saying it was like being a “turd in a swimming pool”.
Every aspect of the environment has changed radically. The value of women drivers is increasingly being recognised in the industry, not only in demonstrating a commitment to diversity as a principle, but to make sure the workforce better reflects the mix of customers, and because women are seen to have the all-important skills of concentration, patience and responsibility. With salaries rising to well over £40k, good holidays and flexible work patterns, driving trains is being seen by more women as an opportunity to escape office politics and find a better work/life balance.
As part of its need to recruit 500 Trainee Drivers by 2019 for the new cross-London Elizabeth line, MTR Crossrail is running campaigns to attract new kinds of applicants and change the face of the rail industry for the future.
The HR team at MTR Crossrail has been making the opportunities visible at recruitment fairs in London, one specifically aimed at unemployed Londoners. Follow-up Open Day events were created for people who registered their interest, giving women the chance to have hands-on experience of driving a new Class 345 train via a simulator at a local train depot. It was an important chance to get women into a working environment, talking to senior staff like the Head of Competence & Learning and the Operations Development Manager, about the stages involved in driver training and selection, making the idea more tangible and real. New women drivers were brought in to talk about the training and what it was really like to work day-to-day as a driver. HR has also been working to create more job-share opportunities where possible, to provide more flexibility for working mums.
MTR Crossrail has become an industry leader in its offering of apprenticeships. The opportunity was spotted early on for the Train Driver Training Programme to be turned into an apprenticeship under the Rail Services (Driving) Apprenticeship Framework. Since it was first set up in February 2016, almost 200 Trainee Train Drivers have joined the programme. Other train operating companies, by contrast, tend to only have a handful of apprentices. Every trainee driver is offered the opportunity to join the apprenticeship scheme and work towards achieving the City & Guilds Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Rail Services (Driving) qualification. To date, 97% of Trainee Train Drivers have elected to undertake the apprenticeship, helping realise the DfT’s ambition of 30,000 apprenticeship starts by 2020. This year has seen the first of the trainees receive their City & Guilds qualification certificates.
Figures for the 304 candidates who successfully passed all recruitment stages (from more than 20,000 who applied), and secured a place on the Trainee Train Driver Programme, are evidence of how the recruitment campaigns have been working, and the potential for future progress. The profile of MTR Crossrail train drivers now shows that 11% are women, 25% ethnic minority, 47% are under 35 - meaning some significant new trends are being created.
How MTR Crossrail has got on track to change train driver recruitment
One of the careers which has struggled most to break free from the tradition of white middle-aged men is train-driving. Just 6% of train drivers in the UK are female, 5% are from ethnic minority backgrounds; only 10% are under 35.
