Angela Barker-Dench, 50, is principal of Swindon’s University Technical College, where classes begin in September. She lives in Gloucester with husband Graham, a civil engineer who runs an architectural services firm, and the couple have two children aged 14 and 12

IF it’s possible to be an evangelist for engineering, Angela Barker-Dench is one.

“There’s no more exciting career than the career of an engineer because it’s so wide and varied,” she said.

“There are more opportunities, careers and job vacancies in engineering, particularly at a professional level, than in any other industry in the country.

“Studying engineering doesn’t close any doors. It’s quite easy for a person who has studied engineering to whatever level to move into another career. Engineers are methodical, they’re analytical, they’re hands-on.”

Angela is from a mining village near Rugeley in Staffordshire. Her father was a former Royal Engineer who worked as a shop floor fitter for the Central Electricity Generating Board. Her mother, who now lives near Angela, worked part-time for most of her life and eventually became a magistrates’ court usher.

Her brother, a decade younger, is a primary school headteacher.

When Angela was 30, her father died of mesothelioma.

“I did a lot of research into that when I was trying to find ways of saving my dad’s life, but unfortunately it was cut short when he was 55. It seems so young now I’m in my 50.

“He was my inspiration, engineering-wise.”

The young Angela attended The Aelfgar in Rugeley, a secondary modern with a sixth form.

“My first ambition was to go into the forces; that was with no idea of what I wanted to do. Then, by the time I was 12 or 13, I wanted to become an engineer.

“My interest came from working on technical drawing at school, which I loved, and then doing practical stuff with my father.

“It would be anything from mending the car to building things, getting things ready in the house – all sorts of stuff.

“I did little electronic projects and things like that. I did an LED alarm clock to start with, I think. I bought the bits and then did it from scratch.

“My career aspiration came just before I started choosing my options for O-Levels. I wanted to be a draughtswoman in engineering.”

In those days, the late 1970s, young women with such ambitions faced many challenges.

Angela’s included a teacher who advised her to choose any science, even though the boys were doing physics. She selected biology and found it useless for her aims.

Angela was once denied an interview for an apprenticeship by a firm, even though an interview was given to a less able boy. When a man from the company visited the school to give a careers talk, Angela politely questioned him.

“I asked him ‘Do you mind telling me why I didn’t get an interview?’ ‘What was it for, dear?’ ‘An engineering apprenticeship.’ ‘Well, we haven’t got any girls’ toilets on the shop floor.’ “It only made me more ambitious to do what I wanted to do. Eventually I got an indentured apprenticeship with the General Electric Company in Stafford.

“I was 16 – the one and only girl. I’ve still got the press cuttings. The local paper came and interviewed me. The headline was ‘She’s One of the Lads’.”

Angela worked on projects ranging from cross-Channel electricity links to a pioneering Maglev – magnetic levitation train – at Birmingham Airport.

She also began assembling a list of qualifications which would eventually include a Masters Degree. It was when she began mentoring graduates, however, that she discovered her love for educating the engineers and scientists of the future.

Angela began her teaching career with one evening session a week at a college in Birmingham, while still working full-time as an engineer.

Teaching gradually took over, and her first management role was in Walsall, overseeing a programme to get women into technical careers.

Angela’s later roles included head of engineering and technology at a college in Stroud and, at the beginning of the century, a similar post at Swindon College.

“Within less than a year I was promoted to a director’s position on the senior management team. I loved working in Swindon. It’s hard-working; I think it’s got its grass roots down in hard work.

“It’s very, very friendly. I always felt happy when I was at Swindon College.

“I made lots of friends that I still have now.”

Various senior management posts elsewhere followed, but then Angela spotted the UTC vacancy online.

“I thought ‘dream job’ – principal’s post, engineering and in Swindon, where I’d always been happy – and a commutable distance from my family, so it ticked all the boxes for me.”

Applications for places are strong – mainly from boys, but with the proportion of girls steadily growing.

Angela acknowledges that engineering and science are not as popular as certain other subjects, but puts this mostly down to a lack of knowledge about career options.

“We’ve got a desperate need for highly qualified, bright engineers in the future at a professional level. It’s what they don’t know about this area rather than being tempted away by what they see as an easier option.

“They just don’t know enough about what’s available. That’s the great thing about a UTC – it’s because we do broad engineering with the academia and the vocational, practical elements, with work experience and work in industry.

“What you’ve got from the age of 14 onwards, almost, is careers opening up in front of you that can give you the experience and the knowledge. They can say ‘Well actually, that looks quite interesting. I might be a civil engineer, an architect, I might be a technician in an electrical company, I might be a design engineer with a PhD with Intel or Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells’.

“They can also move into careers such as marketing and business development. It’s really exciting – I wish I was 14 again.”