Why STEM degrees are so important

A significant number of Italian companies operating in sectors with a high technological and scientific component are struggling to recruit professionals with the necessary skills. This phenomenon is particularly marked in the field of engineering, where the demand for specialist figures far outstrips the supply available on the labour market. This issue has formed the subject of a recent report from Confindustria. The shortage is all the more evident when it comes to electrical engineers, who play an increasingly central role in the energy transition process. The problem can be traced back to insufficient numbers of students, both male and female, choosing this specialisation.

According to a report from the Study Centre of Italy’s National Council of Engineers Foundation, there were just over 520 graduates with a master's degree in electrical engineering in 2023, which is to say 2% of all students completing one of the various engineering courses offered in Italy. Not only has this figure remained unchanged since 2022, but it has actually fallen since 2018, when there were about 60 more graduates. Meanwhile, businesses need at least five times more students qualified to enter this sector.

The need for increased energy efficiency has become inescapable, and training electrical engineers is the best way to ensure the most suitable skills to manage the energy transition process and ever-greater efficiency. The discrepancy between the demand for these professional profiles and their actual availability is not just slowing down the development of sectors — like energy — of strategic importance to Italy, but also risks undermining the success of the ecological and digital transition at the national level.

Enrolments in electrical engineering degree courses also reveal a worrying trend: for several years, the number of new students per institution has remained stable, but at very low levels — between 30 and 40 students per year, on average. On the other hand, the success rate of electrical engineering students remains high, with over 80% completing their master’s degree course — a higher figure than the national average for engineering degrees. Against this backdrop, training courses such as those promoted by Terna are particularly valuable for the development of new skills in the technical-scientific field, with a specific focus on electrical engineering.

In recent years, the company has invested in advanced academic programmes, including specialist master’s degrees aimed at young graduates, with the aim of bridging the gap between university education and the skills required by businesses. The courses offered by Terna are not limited to electrical engineering in its strictest sense, but also encompass such strategic sectors as IT, cybersecurity and environmental engineering, among other things. With these fields increasingly vital to the energy transition and in the management of smart infrastructure, Terna trains professionals in each of them through multidisciplinary courses designed in collaboration with universities. These initiatives not only help to strengthen Italy’s professional network, but can also be an effective way to attract more women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) sectors.

In fact, a pronounced gender imbalance is still present within technical-scientific disciplines, and all the more so in engineering: in the case of electrical engineering courses, women only make up around 20% of students. According to INPS (Italy’s National Institute of Social Security), female workers make up barely 23% of those engaged in the energy sector in Italy, while they represent the vast majority in sectors such as childcare and primary school teaching, among others. However, as revealed by the report L'universo femminile nell'ingegneria italiana (The Female Side of Italian Engineering) from Italy’s National Council of Engineers Foundation, the proportion of women in Italian engineering sectors is growing slightly. In 2025, women make up 17.4% of enrolments on the register of engineers: a share which remains low, but is almost twice that recorded in 2007. Additionally, almost 60% of female engineers are under the age of 45, a sign that their presence in the sector is growing, particularly among younger generations.

The low numbers of women employed in STEM professions — and particularly in sectors such as electrical engineering — is not just a matter of individual preference. In fact, educational and professional decisions are heavily influenced by cultural and social factors that shape our choices in different ways from the very first stages of our academic careers. These same factors can discourage women from pursuing technical-scientific degrees, even though they offer better career and salary prospects, statistically speaking, partly thanks to the high demand they are in on the labour market.

As various analyses have shown, female students tend to opt in greater numbers for courses of study in the humanities or the social sciences; partly because STEM careers are still perceived, consciously or otherwise, as particularly masculine environments. This perception further widens the gender gap, exacerbating the imbalance present in the sector. Numerous studies have shown how cultural stereotypes like these not only influence recruitment mechanisms in the world of work — leading to a greater propensity to hire men for technical roles — but also affect how women themselves perceive their own potential. In fact, female students in many cases tend to internalise the mistaken belief that they cannot compete with their male peers in scientific spheres, ultimately discouraging themselves from pursuing courses which, ironically, could represent important pathways towards economic and professional emancipation.