Eurostat Reports Rise in Women in EU Science Jobs

By: WE Staff | Thursday, 12 February 2026

• In 2024, the number of women working in science and engineering in the EU came up to 7.9 million (40.5% of the total workforce).
• Women accounted for the largest proportion of the workforce in the services sector; their proportion in manufacturing was the lowest (22.4%).
• Latvia is leading the pack; Finland, Hungary, and Luxembourg have the least shares.

The breaking of gender stereotypes in the world of work which has always been the long-standing goal, is as per the latest figures from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, a step closer to reality. Statistics show that the number of science and engineering female workers has been growing in the EU.

The data show that the numbers have been continuously rising over the years, reaching from 3.4 million women in science and engineering jobs in 2008 to 5.2 million in 2014, and to 7.9 million in 2024.

Eurostat 2024 projections show that women held 40.5 per cent of the total science and engineering workforce in the EU. Women's participation was highest in knowledge-intensive services (45.1 per cent) and services (45.0 per cent). In the manufacturing sector, where men still dominate, women constituted only 22.4 per cent of scientists and engineers.

Different Member States show great variation regarding the percentages of women scientists and engineers. The biggest shares of women scientists and engineers were found in Latvia (50.9 per cent), Denmark (48.8 per cent), and Estonia (47.9 per cent). Besides that, Latvia remains the only Member State where the number of women in science and engineering is substantially higher than that of men, and their share is 50.9 per cent, which is 10.4 percentage points above the EU average.

On the other hand, the lowest proportion was in Finland (30.7 per cent) with Hungary (31.7 per cent) and Luxembourg (32.4 per cent) as the next lowest. Italy is still below the EU average, by about 38 percentage points.

At the level of the regions, female scientists and engineers are almost equally divided among 10 EU regions, four of which are in Spain, two in Portugal, two in Poland, one in Bulgaria, and one in Sweden. In Italy, Central Italy has the highest percentage at 38.0 per cent, followed by the islands, North-West, North-East, and Southern Italy.