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In June 2003, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), with funding from the European Social Fund, launched a General Formal Investigation (GFI) into gender segregation in the following five occupational areas, where skill shortages exist and where gender segregation is most prevalent: construction, engineering, plumbing, information and communications technology (ICT), and childcare. The investigation was conducted in two phases. This report is from phase two of the study. This phase of the study was designed to: gather further evidence on the reasons for occupational segregation and the barriers to change in terms of attitudes, aspirations and experience of young people, delivery and practice in education, careers advice and training, and the practices and attitudes of employers; identify strategies and solutions to remove these barriers; and in England, provide additional evidence on segregation in wider vocational education and training. This report is the English component of the investigation. The first two chapters contain the investigation findings relating to the case for change and barriers to change, respectively. Findings indicate that the current 'education to training to work' is failing young women and tackling gender segregation will result in increased choice, increased opportunity, and increased productivity. Barriers to change include: a lack of strategic agenda for schools to open up choice and opportunity; apprenticeships are heavily gender segregated and the current system perpetuates this segregation because of a lack of apprenticeship places, lack of taster courses and inflexibility in training delivery that disadvantages women with caring responsibilities; a lack of coordinated and consistent action amongst employers; and a lack of national strategy to tackle occupational segregation. Chapter three presents recommendations for delivering change. They include: a new agenda for schools that widens choice and supports vocational routes to employment; an apprenticeship and vocational training system that encourages the take-up of atypical recruits; promoting reduction in occupational segregation to employers not just as an equality issue, but also as a business and productivity issue; and national strategies that put tackling segregation at the heart of policies to raise productivity and skills. Included as appendices are: Examples of best practice; Research commissioned for the investigation; Terms of reference; Phase one recommendations.