According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) June 23. Only 15% of the construction workforce is female, and that number reduces to just 1% in many of the manual trades.
We have an issue with this, so at Shrewsbury Colleges Group we are taking positive actions to bring more young women into this exciting and diverse industry.
Leading by example, we started with our teaching staff. Over the past 9 years, we have recruited 6 women across a variety of trades including plumbing, electrical, carpentry, and painting and decorating.
From left to right - Ffion Hobbs, Holly Edwards, Jose Jarratt, Danielle Davies, Amanda Crane, Teresa Cross
Passionate about promoting the trades they love; they created a brand called ‘Construction Inc.’ and have routinely invited groups of young women, who are still in school and yet to make their career choices, into the college to ‘have a go’ in a safe, all female environment.
On International Women’s Day earlier this year, they extended their promotion by inviting women of all ages to a presentation evening, including local women currently employed in construction to share their experiences and broaden the information on the range of opportunities out there. With talks from surveyors, architects, estimators, sustainability leads and quantity surveyors, as well as the trades, it really started to open minds to the endless opportunities out there.
This September, we enrolled 53 female students to our construction courses, up from 44 the year before. It is not enough, but the numbers are heading in the right direction.
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