Welcome

It’s been another busy week at EqualEngineers, including delivering our first online event with IOM3 as part of our growing Professional Engineering Institution partnerships. More on that below.

This week is also Mental Health Awareness Week, and it feels important to pause and recognise that.

So much of the work we do at EqualEngineers, and much of my own work personally through The SAFE Leader, centres around creating cultures where people feel able to speak openly, ask for support, challenge when something feels wrong, and bring more of themselves into the workplace without fear.

We still have a long way to go in breaking stigma across engineering and industry more broadly. But conversations are changing, and that change starts with openness, empathy and leadership.

Being a SAFE Leader means creating environments where people feel psychologically safe, heard and supported, not just when things go wrong, but every day.

If there’s one thing I’d encourage this week, it’s this:

Check in with people. Start conversations. Make space for honesty.

You never fully know what someone else may be carrying.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Although nominations for the Engineering Talent Awards 2026 are now closed and our judges are busy reviewing what is likely to be a record-breaking number of entries, there are still a small number of opportunities available to sponsor award categories this year.

The Engineering Talent Awards has become one of the UK’s leading celebrations of diversity, innovation and impact across engineering and technology. Every year, the awards shine a spotlight on incredible individuals, teams and organisations who are shaping the future of the profession.

Sponsoring a category is more than brand visibility.

It’s an opportunity to publicly align your organisation with the future of engineering, supporting inclusion, leadership, skills development and positive culture across the sector.

Sponsors benefit from:

• Visibility across our awards campaign and event activity

• Association with positive stories and sector-leading talent

• Access to a growing cross-sector engineering network

• Opportunities to strengthen employer brand and attraction

• Presence at one of the sector’s most inspiring evenings of the year

Most importantly, sponsorship helps us continue building a platform that recognises people who are making engineering more inclusive, accessible and forward-looking.

If your organisation would be interested in supporting this year’s awards, we’d love to hear from you.

Accessibility in Engineering with IOM3

This week we hosted our first joint webinar with the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) focused on accessibility in engineering, and it was a fantastic discussion with excellent engagement throughout.

The session featured engineer and educator Animesh Anand, who shared both professional insight and personal lived experience around neurodiversity, accessibility and inclusive engineering education. One of the strongest themes throughout the discussion was the importance of psychological safety and open communication, creating environments where people feel comfortable asking for support, contributing ideas and bringing different perspectives into engineering spaces.

There were some particularly thoughtful conversations around:

• How engineering education and workplaces can become more inclusive by design

• Why diversity of thought strengthens engineering decision-making

• The importance of moving beyond awareness into practical action

• How project-based learning and collaboration can better support different learners

• Why inclusive leadership and culture remain fundamental to accessibility

The audience engagement was brilliant throughout, with attendees contributing reflections, questions and ideas around what still needs to change across the profession. One point that really resonated was the idea that:

Accessibility and inclusion should not be treated as add-ons, they should be embedded into engineering from the beginning.

A huge thank you to Animesh, Fayon Dixon, IOM3 and everyone who joined the conversation.

This Week on The SAFE Leader Podcast

No new podcast episode this week, it’s been a particularly busy period and I haven’t had the opportunity to record a new conversation.

Instead, I wanted to revisit one of my favourite episodes of The SAFE Leader Podcast with someone whose work I greatly admire: Dame Judith Hackitt.

Having met Dame Judith in person and followed her work over many years, I continue to find her perspective on leadership, safety and culture incredibly grounding and important.

In this episode, we explore what it truly means to lead with integrity, empathy and long-term vision. Dame Judith reflects on growing up in a mining village surrounded by industrial risk and how those early experiences shaped her understanding of safety, responsibility and leadership.

We discuss why health and safety must be embedded into culture rather than treated as a compliance exercise, and why inclusion and psychological safety are fundamental to creating organisations where people feel able to challenge, question and speak up.

It’s a thoughtful and deeply relevant conversation, especially during Mental Health Awareness Week.

Let’s Connect!

Please reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn if we are not already connected.

I love helping organisations where the angle I take with the work I do might help in someway have you make traction in your culture.

Feel free to get in touch here.

Stay SAFE!