Eurostat counts 8.2 million women among 20.2 million EU scientists and engineers in 2025. Île-de-France has the largest regional female workforce, at 336,300, but women make up 38% of its total.
Eurostat’s figures show that women accounted for 8.2 million of the EU’s 20.2 million scientists and engineers in 2025, or 41%. The French capital region of Île-de-France had the most women scientists and engineers among the EU regions compared, at 336,300, or 38% of its total.
The comparison uses NUTS 1, the first level of the EU’s three-level system for classifying territory for statistics. These regions do not necessarily match national administrative divisions.
Several regions had similarly large numbers of women scientists and engineers, but their shares of the regional workforce in those occupations differed.
| Region | Number of women | Share of scientists and engineers |
|---|---|---|
| Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany | 281,400 | 35% |
| Este, Spain | 279,400 | 46% |
| West-Nederland, Netherlands | 271,600 | 40% |
| Bayern, Germany | 271,100 | 35% |
| Continente, Portugal | 265,100 | 46% |
Women were a majority in 10 regions: 4 in Spain, 2 in Portugal and 1 in Greece, along with Makroregion centralny in Poland, Sweden’s northernmost region and the French outermost regions.
The Health Department has funded a planning team to begin work in December 2026, but says full implementation depends on future health funding. The work is expected to take around a year.
Among those majority-female regions, Spain’s Noreste had the largest number of women scientists and engineers, at 102,700. That was fewer than in Île-de-France, but women accounted for a higher share of Noreste’s total, at 51%.
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