FEMALE engineers are being hailed by telecoms giant BT to celebrate today's International Women in Engineering Day.

The day is organised by the Women’s Engineering Society to raise the profile of women in engineering and to highlight the amazing careers available for girls taking up technical roles.

Former nursery nurse Lyndsay O’Brien, 26, is a software engineer who lives in Erskine, Renfrewshire and is based in BT’s Global Development Centre in Glasgow – one of six international centres established by the company to collaborate and innovate on software and systems development.

The Glasgow centre employs around 150 software engineers, technical designers and project managers working in areas such as energy management, mobile applications and software systems used across BT, and works closely with local universities to create a pipeline of talent.

O’Brien joined BT as an apprentice software engineer in the company’s energy and carbon reduction team in 2013. Since completing her apprenticeship in October 2016, she’s been working as a test analyst on software and hardware used in thousands of BT exchanges, which help reduce BT’s energy bills, consumption and carbon footprint.

She has just been promoted into a new role working on mobile apps.

She said: “Changing career has been an amazing stepping stone. It’s okay if you make the wrong career decision when you leave school – there are always other possibilities.”

O’Brien was one of five female software engineers from BT’s centre in Glasgow to get involved in a film-making project – Girls Who Code – with Glasgow University Student TV.

Lennox Davies, 45, from Glasgow is a senior project manager in BT’s technology division who currently works on the integration of technical delivery processes for BT and EE.

She joined BT after graduating from Glasgow University. She’s been involved in the development of everything from BT Wi-fi iOS and Android apps to systems diagnosis.