DEI report shows women and minority groups are still underrepresented in advanced air mobility industry

Women and oth­er minor­i­ty iden­ti­ty groups remain under­rep­re­sent­ed in the uncrewed air­craft sys­tem (UAS) and advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly in lead­er­ship posi­tions, accord­ing to research from a tri­ad of women-owned busi­ness­es.

Women And Drones, P3 Tech Con­sult­ing and the Diver­si­ty Devel­op­ment Net­work of Cana­da (DDNC) col­lect­ed the data through the Women and Drones — DDNC — P3 Tech 2021 UAS/AAM Indus­try DEI Sur­vey, which was con­duct­ed last year between August 6th and Sep­tem­ber 17th.

When asked ‘Please indi­cate the per­cent­age ranges of lead­er­ship posi­tions among the fol­low­ing diverse groups you employ in your UAS/AAM or UAS/AAM-relat­ed Busi­ness or Organ­i­sa­tion’, the fol­low­ing results were not­ed:

• The high­est rank­ings of diverse groups of lead­er­ship posi­tions rep­re­sent­ing under 20 per cent of senior man­age­ment posi­tions with­in respon­dent organ­i­sa­tions were the Asian Racial Cat­e­go­ry at 57.53 per cent fol­lowed by Native Amer­i­can or Alas­ka Native Racial Cat­e­go­ry at 56.8 per cent and Black or African Racial Cat­e­go­ry at 55.88 per cent

• The high­est rank­ings of diverse groups of lead­er­ship posi­tions rep­re­sent­ing 21 per cent to 50 per cent of senior man­age­ment posi­tions with­in respon­dent organ­i­sa­tions were the Female Gen­der at 31.51 per cent fol­lowed by His­pan­ic, Lati­no, or Span­ish Ori­gin Eth­nic at 31.38 per cent and Native Hawai­ian or Oth­er Pacif­ic Islander 29.72 per cent

• The high­est rank­ings of diverse groups of lead­er­ship posi­tions rep­re­sent­ing 71 per cent to 85 per cent of senior man­age­ment posi­tions with­in respon­dent organ­i­sa­tions were the White Racial Cat­e­go­ry at 9.98% fol­lowed by LBTGQ Com­mu­ni­ty at 8.37 per cent and Female Gen­der at 8.23 per cent

Mean­while, almost 75 per cent of respon­dents said they also felt mod­er­ate to extreme con­cern about the lack of diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion in the UAS/AAM indus­try in gen­er­al. 

More than 80 per cent of respon­dents expressed con­cern, rang­ing from mod­er­ate to extreme, about the lack of diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion (DEI) in their own UAS/AAM or UAS/AAM-relat­ed Busi­ness or Organ­i­sa­tion. 

A slight­ly high­er per­cent­age (81 per cent) expressed mod­er­ate to extreme inter­est in increas­ing DEI in their com­pa­nies.

Round­ing out the top ten indus­try take­aways from the sur­vey, respon­dents also expressed believes that DEI is impor­tant to the suc­cess of UAS/AAM and UAS/AAM-relat­ed busi­ness­es, that a lack of DEI would result in finan­cial impacts to busi­ness­es and that it is impor­tant for the indus­try to under­stand the val­ue DEI brings to the table.

The data also indi­cat­ed that the indus­try, as rep­re­sent­ed by respon­dents, desires effec­tive DEI pro­grams across a broad range of top­ics, skills, and human-rela­tions type ini­tia­tives. 

Almost all respon­dents expressed inter­est in par­tic­i­pat­ing in an UAS/AAM Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee to pro­vide indus­try input towards DEI, skills & com­pe­ten­cies devel­op­ment, pro­gram­ming and train­ing to ensure Indus­try rel­e­vance.

The Women and Drones — DDNC — P3 Tech 2021 UAS/AAM Indus­try DEI Sur­vey was con­duct­ed as a self-select­ing sur­vey tool tar­get­ing a vari­ety UAS and AAM busi­ness­es and sec­tors across the U.S.  Approx­i­mate­ly 1,082 indi­vid­u­als respond­ed to the sur­vey dur­ing the six-week peri­od it was open. 

The Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety (VFS), the world’s only inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal soci­ety for engi­neers, sci­en­tists and oth­ers work­ing to advance ver­ti­cal flight tech­nol­o­gy, as part of a larg­er edu­ca­tion­al part­ner­ship with Women And Drones, spon­sored more than twen­ty $50 gift cards, in sup­port of a ran­dom draw made for every 50 respons­es received upon sur­vey com­ple­tion. 

A sum­ma­ry of the sur­vey find­ings can be accessed by down­load­ing the com­pli­men­ta­ry report here.

Addi­tion­al data and find­ings from the sur­vey will be released in a 100 plus page mar­ket report which will be avail­able for pur­chase soon in the com­ing weeks, through the Women And Drones web­site.