Almost 40% more women applying for Motorsport Engineering courses in Wiltshire
The increased demand has led to the creation of a women's racing team at Wiltshire College and University Centre
New figures show an almost 40% rise in the number of women applying for motorsport engineering courses at Wiltshire College and University Centre.
It reflects a growing interest in the courses from young women, as motorsport opens up from its history of male-domination.
This year the College and University Centre has seen 50 women apply for courses offered in Further or Higher education - up from 36 in 2025.
And to help more women forge careers in motorsport and wider engineering, the centre has created a dedicated women's racing team, with a chassis bought specifically for a team of women to work on.
Madison Cook and Quinn Garrod are part of that team and told us why they're involved.
"I want to get to high level and when you research it you want experience and a degree. So I want to start getting experience early so I can get ahead of the curve," Madison said.
Quinn told us: "I wanted it to be something sort of personal. I feel like a lot of the motorsport industry is male dominated. So having the women's car, it feels like the women are being included in it."
The team is being lead by David Campion, who leads the motorsport engineering courses, who said he hopes it achieves multiple goals.
"It's trying to promote women in engineering as well, because that's massive lacking at the moment. So we need to sort that out. But part of that is just trying to get more skills, trying to get more experience, and hands-on experience is part of that," he said.
"Engineering isn't all just computers and stuff like that. We do teach a lot of computer side, but you need to know how to build something and how it goes together before designing it. So the design part is really, really crucial for us, but we need to know how the part goes together."
On the day we visited, the team faced a problem solving challenge in extracting the engine, which had got stuck. But after many minutes of working together, the team managed to pull it clear of the tightly packed chassis.
While David said that wasn't part of the day's plan, it's all good experience: "You don't want the engineer to be happy trying to take something out at the end of the day. But we got it out in the end and it is about trying to make everything fit and get that experience for their CV."
He said the growing number of women on engineering courses is "massively encouraging", telling us that increasing diversity of engineering, not only with women but with BME too, is a big focus for the College and University Centre.
Madison said she hopes the opportunity for a women's racing team will encourage more young women to follow their engineering dreams, and that the growing participation of women in motorsport is helping pave the way for people like her.
She's already gaining high-level experience by working with a British Superbike team and hopes to be a motorbike mechanic in the future and "do something that changes motorsport forever".
Quinn said the trend is a huge positive: "It's definitely encouraging seeing more women get involved, even in lower motorsport groups, not just F1. So having this team, it's definitely showing us as women that there are endless possibilities for us."
The hope is to get the car built up and operational over the coming months so it can hit the track and provide further engineering experience.