Loughborough University’s Dr Karen Blay highlights the role digital technology can play in addressing construction’s gender diversity and inclusion issues.
Traditionally, the construction sector has been short on opportunities for attracting and retaining women, who make up just 13% of the workforce and 1% of tradespeople (according to figures from Autodesk’s research on the skills issues facing the industry). However, this shortfall is starting to change slowly, with three-quarters of construction professionals in the same survey saying their company is prioritising hiring from diverse backgrounds.
Many are also putting their money where their mouths are, with a quarter of businesses (26%) investing in diversity and inclusion over the next two years.
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The figures clearly show there is much more to do. Prioritising diversity in construction is crucial to facilitating innovation and tackling the well-publicised talent gap. It is estimated that 266,000 additional construction professionals will be needed by 2026, and to meet this lofty objective, greater efforts have to be made to attract and retain people who may not previously have considered the built environment as a career path.
“As well as helping organisations become more efficient and sustainable, technology is also helping to attract and retain women in the industry, levelling the playing field and making it more inclusive.”
Dr Karen Blay
Another way construction is changing is the shift towards digitisation and data-led strategies. As well as helping organisations become more efficient and sustainable, technology is helping to attract and retain women in the industry, levelling the playing field and making it more inclusive.
A new image for construction
Focusing first on the issue of ‘attraction’, it is clear that some lingering misconceptions about the industry need to be broken down. The image of construction as a macho industry requiring strength and manual labour to succeed remains for some. But it is increasingly a sector where data-driven insights and digitisation are paramount for success.
Campaigns to encourage women to embark on science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers are thankfully increasingly common. However, this inevitably focuses on the engineering segment, and not enough young women know that entering construction is a fantastic pathway to apply diverse digital skills. More positive outreach, facilitated by the demonstration of digital technologies used in construction, must be carried out at the secondary education level, or even earlier, to reaffirm this message.
Gender-bias language in job adverts
One way that barriers can manifest themselves for women in construction is through gender-biased language in job adverts or interviews. This is often unconscious, but no less offputting for prospective candidates. Some studies have found that the wording in job descriptions for senior roles was perceived to be more “masculine-coded” than in more junior ones. Terms associated with masculine traits like courage, grit and resilience crop up more regularly.
I’m working on a research project to examine how AI is being used to identify and remove this kind of language in the recruitment process, which is just one example of where technology is helping to address gender bias in the industry.
“Working in a flexible or remote setting helps to remove invisible biases. It also levels the playing field for those who may have children or other care responsibilities.”
Dr Karen Blay
Retention
The issue of gender imbalance in the construction industry can be best described as a ‘leaky pipe’. While we’re struggling to attract women into the sector in the first place, we also struggle to retain them and often end up losing talented people further down the line, perhaps to other industries.
One notable trend that has had some impact here is the widespread adoption of collaboration tools and common data environments. Partly accelerated by the pandemic and the explosion of remote work, these are now cornerstones of most construction companies’ daily operations. Collaborative tools can also facilitate networking and relationship building, which are crucial to creating a conducive working environment for women.
Working in a flexible or remote setting helps to remove invisible biases. It also levels the playing field for those who may have children or other care responsibilities, and crucially encourages retention of women who might otherwise have left the construction sector when choosing to start a family.
The digital future
A total of 95% of UK construction companies have plans to invest in cutting-edge technologies (such as data analytics and AI) before 2027, so it can be argued that our sector’s growth will be increasingly shaped by digital tools and innovation.
The skills issue and technology opportunities also go hand-in-hand. To fulfil the potential of digital transformation, construction businesses need to ensure they recruit and retain specialists from all backgrounds and those with digital capabilities and knowledge of emerging fields like AI, virtual and augmented reality and cloud computing. Unless there’s a clear pathway for people from all backgrounds, the sector risks being stuck in the past.
Dr Karen Blay is senior lecturer in digital construction and quantity surveying at Loughborough University. She will present at the Women in BIM's London conference on 4 July.
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