Although the late Margaret Thatcher was an Oxford University chemistry graduate before she became leader of the Conservative Party and the winner of three consecutive General Elections, the word ‘engineer’ is still a bit of a dirty one as far as women are concerned.

The majority of the public – 66 per cent in a recent survey by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers – tend to think of engineers as men, presumably chaps in greasy overalls mucking about with bits of rusty piping or a man in a van who comes round to sort out the boiler or the radiators.

Liz Phillips said: “It’s not really that surprising that people associate engineering with men; it is so male-dominated. From my perspective there is nothing stopping me from getting as far as I want, no blockages that I can see.”

Liz, who works for Shipley-based Radio Design in Wharf Street, is one of only 140 women worldwide to become a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, reportedly the UK’s main engineering organisation with a global presence.

Forty-year-old Liz leads the company’s filter engineering technology group and invented two of its patented products. She hopes that her success will encourage more females to take up engineering as career – but she’s not optimistic.

“When I was at school, there was less encouragement for female engineers, for studying maths, the sciences. If you don’t get encouragement, why would you get into it?

“When I left college in Huddersfield in 1990, there was a feeling that you could get a good job and make lots of money. Twenty years later, where has it all gone?” she said.

At Bradford University, Liz studied electrical and electronic engineering, one of up to ten females out of about 110 students. The expectation was that female undergraduates would go into peace studies while the men would study the sciences.

When she was a girl, Liz’s mum took the view that she could pursue any career path she liked so long as she made a go of it. Her father, who designed kitchens, liked to tinker with his car. It was from him that Liz said she developed an interest in mechanical engineering, doing things.

“When I went to school, I was good at maths and physics. But I preferred hands-on-work to theorising,” she said. While at university she got a placement with Saltaire-based Filtronic plc – then run by Professor David Rhodes. That made a significant difference to her career.

Prof Rhodes has demonstrated that being a scientist and making money as a businessmen are not mutually exclusive. A top-rated academic at Leeds University, he founded wireless communications company Filtronic and made a fortune, expanding the company across the world.

Now the boss of Isotek Oil and Gas, which designs and builds computerised deep-sea welding equipment for gas and oil pipelines, Prof Rhodes, winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Prince Philip Medal, doesn’t see much hope in the situation changing.

He said: “Thirty years ago there was WISE – Women into Science and Engineering – but it didn’t make any difference. There’s a greater percentage of women in engineering in France, Italy, the United States, Israel and Iran – at least that used to be the case.

“In this country, they are not treated as equal professionals. We have been brought up with that by the media and everything.”

Engineering, of course, covers a broad spectrum, from the design and construction of buildings to inventing and making delicate biomedical equipment.

“Getting graduates wanting to do it is very difficult. But it’s a good discipline to enter. I suppose it’s the usual thing about blokes getting paid more, so women look for other things,” Liz Phillips added.

The number of female engineering graduates in the UK reputedly rose from seven to 15 per cent from 1984 to 2007, although the number of women engineers in industry, around six per cent, is said to be the lowest in the European Union.

In spite of the historical prejudice against women in science subjects, the contributions they have made in various forms of engineering include the invention of the first circular saw, bridge foundations and radioactivity.

The pioneer of radioactivity research was Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Curie, who twice won the Nobel Prize – in 1903 for physics and in 1911 for chemistry.