For the second year running, Brunel University London is to offer £10,000-a-year scholarships across its women-only MSc engineering courses, with 30 awards on offer.

The move follows the successful introduction of its Women in Engineering programme in 2014, which combines bursaries and a range of other activities, such as matching students with professional engineers.

Rosa Scoble, director of planning at Brunel, said: “We are already one of the largest engineering departments in the country, with ambitious plans to become the UK’s biggest.

"Like the engineering profession itself, we are acutely aware that, to continue to thrive, we need to recruit many more women on to our courses. Our pilot programme is already proving an enormous success, both with students and with industry.

“As well as the MSc scholarships, we are extending the Women in Engineering programme to undergraduate students from 2015-16. We already have more than 400 female student engineers on campus, and this year we are looking to increase that number significantly.”