No more champions | UK firm cuts 'masculine' words from job ads and gets THIS result

Thames Water has seen a surge in the number of female applicants to frontline roles after culling 'masculine’ words like ‘champion’ from its job adverts.

When advertising for sewage works technicians last year, the water services firm revealed that just eight per cent of applications came from women – likely because they were discouraged by the wording.

To give greater insights as to why the interest levels were so low among women, the organisation used an online tool to uncover hidden meanings in the language used and to highlight ‘masculine-coded’ phrases.

In response to the findings, the firm removed words such as ‘competitive’, ‘confident’ and ‘champion’ from the job advert. The number of female applicants rose six-fold to 46% after the launch of the new £13-an-hour job advert.