Natural and physical sciences remained the VET STEM field with the greatest proportion of women enrolments (66%) and completions (70%) in 2021. These proportions have remained between 61% and 73% every year from 2015 to 2021.
Engineering remained the least popular VET STEM field for women in 2021. Women have made up 11% or less of enrolments in this field since 2015.
About the data
Data is for Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) level courses only. The majority of VET qualifications in this data range from Certificate I to Advanced Diploma, with a very small number of Diploma and Graduate Certificate qualifications also included.
Enrolment and completion numbers refer to women and men enrolling in and completing qualifications in a particular calendar year. They only cover domestic students: Australian citizens, New Zealand citizens, Australian permanent residents and Australian humanitarian visa holders.
Enrolment and completion numbers across years do not represent longitudinal data. You should not use them to determine attrition rates.
A small number of students report a gender other than male or female or do not report a gender on their enrolment form. The proportion calculations on this page only include students who reported their gender as male or female.
Read more about our methodology and this data.