Marie-Noelle Barton, who heads an Engineering Council campaign to encourage girls into science and engineering, maintains that some of Britain's most successful women have had their careers shaped by the toys they played with as children. Even girls who end up nowhere near a microchip or microscope could benefit from a better grasp of science and technology.

'It's a matter of giving them experience and confidence with technology so that when they are  presented with a situation requiring some technical know-how, they feel they can handle it and don't just admit defeat immediately,' says Mrs Barton. 'I believe that lots of girls feel unsure of themselves when it comes to technology and therefore they might be losing out on jobs because they are reluctant even to apply for them.'

Research recently carried out suggests that scientific and constructional toys should be accesible to girls from an early age, otherwise the result is 'socialisation' into stereotypically female roles , which may explain why relatively few girls study science and engineering at university in Britain. Only 14% of those who have gone for engineering options at university this year are women, although this figure does represent an improvement on the 7% recorded some years ago.