My friend Annette Williams, who has died of cancer aged 61, was a leading figure in the fight for equality for women in science, engineering and technology. She began her career as a social worker, but her keen interest in motorbikes led her to retrain as a motor mechanic, and she won the UK silver medal in her City and Guilds exams.

In 1985, with Ros Wall (who became Annette’s life partner) and Roz Wollen, she opened Gwenda’s, a garage in Sheffield staffed entirely by female mechanics.

Deeply involved in the women and manual trades movement, Annette set up an innovative programme to train women in non-traditional trades at Bradford College, where she taught from 1988 until 1992. Realising then that something broader and deeper had to change for women to make successful careers in non-traditional trades, Annette established national and European training programmes, Let’s Twist (Train Women in Science and Technology) and Jive (the Joint Intervention project).

In 2004 Annette started the United Kingdom Resources Centre (UKRC), dedicated to promoting change in science and engineering for women, and funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with Ros as assistant director. In 2011, it took over the leadership of the Women into Science and Engineering (Wise) campaign, which became UKRC-Wise. With the Equality Challenge Unit, Annette also initiated the Athena Swan charter and awards to encourage organisations working towards gender equality. In 2010, she was given an honorary doctorate from the Open University in recognition of her work.

Annette was born in Belper, Derbyshire, younger daughter of Freda (nee Doran), a civil servant, and Roger Williams, a civil engineer. She went to Bramcote Hills grammar school and Sheffield Polytechnic, where she studied for a social work degree, graduating in 1979. Her commitment to social justice and women’s rights was kick-started in Sheffield.

A sometimes prickly, stubborn perfectionist, Annette also had a great sense of the ridiculous and her laugh was legendary. She was loyal and devoted to her family, and maintained a wide range of friendships over decades. Fiercely intelligent and exactingly artistic, Annette never stopped: over time she became adept at green woodworking (which uses unseasoned timber), weaving, stained glass, pottery, fire eating and uni-cycling, as well as following her mother’s example as an accomplished seamstress. She was sentimental about animals and hapless friends often found themselves babysitting rescue donkeys or sheep, or Hedy Lamarr, the German wirehaired pointer who shared a home with Annette, Ros and their friend Mandy.

Ros died in 2010. Recently Annette found happiness with Jim McRoberts, with whom she had been in a relationship in her younger days in Sheffield.

Annette is survived by Jim, her mother, Freda, and sister, Sue.