August 2026 Newsletter
Dear Women in Mobility UK Community,
"Manels" still happen at transport events. Event organisers still tell us they couldn't find women to speak. Why? There isn't a good evidence base to say what's really going on. As one of our core goals is to raise the visibility of women in the transport sector, we want to learn about your experiences: what's it actually like to be overlooked, asked or put forward to speak at industry conferences, panels, and webinars? What opens the door, and what quietly closes it? Our survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. Your answers will inform initiatives with partners and event organisers across the sector so please take a moment to complete it, and forward it to a colleague or friend too.
This month's Mobility Insights round-up has a clear thread running through it: safety. A major new Connected Places Catapult report sets out how the UK can finally move from pilots to a coordinated national approach on transport safety for women and girls, a new Soroptimist investigation shows how much ground our railway stations still have to cover, and the World Bank's global toolkit offers a practical resource for anyone working on gender and transport, wherever in the world that work takes you.
We are excited to be supporting Landor Links with a conference on Wednesday 4th November on the topic of creating safe public spaces and transport networks for women and girls. In this newsletter you will also find other national and international events worth considering, including the ITS awards (nominations are open), and the usual pointers to roles being advertised across the sector in the UK.
As ever, this is your community. If there is something you would like to see, a story to spotlight, or a milestone to celebrate, reach out to Sandra, Olga, Elaine or Jennie on LinkedIn. We would love to hear from you.
Warm wishes, The WiM UK team 
The Conference Participation & Speaking Opportunities Survey
Women in Mobility UK is seeking to better understand women's experiences participating in industry conferences, panels, webinars, and events. We want to understand how women experience speaking at industry events, including what works well and what gets in the way.
The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Women in Mobility UK is committed to protecting your privacy. Your responses will be treated confidentially and aggregated for analysis. The insights gained will inform future initiatives, research, and activities that support greater inclusion in the mobility sector. So please take the time to fill it in and to share it with your colleagues and peers. Follow the link below to begin. Mobility Insights Spotlight
1. UK railway stations: still failing on the basics for women's safety A new investigation by Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland, the Railway Station Safety Survey, assessed 373 stations and 985 platforms across Great Britain and found 55% lacked visible security provision, only one in ten stations were staffed for the whole time passengers were present, and 48% of car parks were poorly lit or lacked a clearly marked safe area. It's a repeat of a project SIGBI first ran in 1996, and the comparison is sobering: British Transport Police figures show violence against women and girls on the railway has risen by more than 50% since 2021. SIGBI is calling on the Department for Transport, Network Rail, train operators and the Office of Rail and Road to introduce and enforce minimum safety standards, particularly for evening hours and unstaffed stations.
2. A national roadmap for transport safety for women and girls Connected Places Catapult's new report, Transport Safety for Women and Girls, draws on multi-stakeholder workshops with transport operators, police, local authorities, innovators and researchers. Its central finding: the barriers to safer transport aren't technological but sit in governance, incentives, data-sharing and operational capacity, even as a real gender gap persists in how safe trains, metros and buses feel to use. The report calls for a lightweight national Centre of Excellence to convene stakeholders and speed up adoption of what works, frictionless multi-channel reporting with real response playbooks, interventions that target perpetrator and bystander behaviour directly, and pilots at selected interchanges to test what actually moves the needle. The Connected Places Catapult is actively looking for partners to help stand up the Centre of Excellence.
3. She Drives Change: a practical global toolkit worth knowing about It is a year since the World Bank Group released the She Drives Change: A Toolkit for Redefining Opportunities for Women in Transport, a comprehensive resource for identifying and closing gender gaps in mobility, employment and entrepreneurship across urban transport, rural and peri-urban roads, rail, aviation, maritime and economic corridors. It sets out common barriers, concrete interventions and indicators for tracking progress, drawn from World Bank project experience worldwide. Even for those of us working purely on UK transport, it's a useful reference point for benchmarking our own approach against international good practice. New case studies continue to be added to the digital toolkit. Events Spotlight
Events in the UK and abroad over the coming months that may be of interest.
European Transport Conference 2026 – Porto, 9–11 September 2026 Europe's oldest multi-disciplinary, multi-stream transport conference, run by the Association for European Transport. A genuinely welcoming space spanning policy, research and delivery across all modes, and a great option for those building European connections. https://trimis.ec.europa.eu/event/european-transport-conference-4
InnoTrans 2026 – Berlin, 22–25 September 2026 The world's leading trade fair for transport technology, across rail, public transport and infrastructure. This year's themes lean heavily into AI, automation and autonomous public transport. The Women in Rail Award ceremony will also take place here. The German branch of Women in Mobility are celebrating 10 years with a luncheon on 22 Sept, 11:45 to 14:00, booking via Eventbrite. https://www.innotrans.de/en
Highways UK 2026 – NEC Birmingham, 14–15 October 2026 The road infrastructure, transport and mobility supply chain gathers for a multi-track conference alongside the exhibition floor, covering strategic investment, local delivery, digital twins and sustainability. https://www.hauc-uk.org.uk/events/highways-uk-2026
Planning for Women and Girls - Bradford Arts Centre, 4th November 2026 Keynotes, case studies, workshops and panels across five connected themes. What works for women and girls tends to be safer for everybody, so the day joins design, safety, inclusion, culture and power into a single route towards change. It builds on the Gender on the Agenda series and features the WYCA Safer Parks project. https://www.landorlinks.uk/pfwg
ITS UK Annual Awards - Sheraton Grand, Park Lane, 10th November 2026 Marking its 20th year, it covers 13 categories across connected/autonomous mobility, data, innovation, sustainability and leadership, with individual and project categories open to all ITS UK members and public sector bodies. The Awards feature the Jennie Martin Award for ITS Woman of the Year, named after Women in Mobility's own Jennie Martin. The Award was created in 2022 to mark Jennie's retirement as Secretary General of ITS United Kingdom and has been handed out every year since. You can nominate yourself or someone else, award entries close 28 August 2026. https://www.its-uk.org/event/presidents-dinner-awards-2/
Opportunities
Below we share some public and private sector transport and mobility roles currently being advertised in the UK.
Director of Transport Commissioning & Development – Liverpool City Region (up to £131,940, closes 7 August 2026)
Senior Transport Planner (Euston, HS2 and KX) – London Borough of Camden (starting salary £46,006, closes 11 August 2026)
Transportation Planning Officer – North Lanarkshire Council (Motherwell; £47,484–£52,252, closes 12 August 2026)
Road Safety Manager – York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (York, hybrid; £52,414–£55,539, closes 16 August 2026)
Head of Transport Strategy – York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (York/Northallerton, hybrid; £71,425–£80,216, closes 15 September 2026)
Senior or Principal Consultant, Transport and Development Planning – Steer (London, hybrid) https://apply.workable.com/steer-group/j/472319E0F6/
Senior Consultant, Intelligent Mobility – Atkins (London, Cambridge, Manchester, Epsom or Birmingham)
Graduate Transport Planner – AECOM (Manchester, hybrid) https://www.gradcracker.com/hub/60/aecom/graduate-job/81673/graduate-transport-planner
Recruiting for a role yourself? Send it to us on LinkedIn and we will feature it next month. 📣 Help us grow: share this newsletter
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