Christine Townley of the Construction Youth Trust describes the work the body is doing to encourage women to choose a career in construction.
Christine Townley
How disappointing for the industry that despite all the efforts from CIOB there were no applications from women for the Construction Manager of the Year Awards and as a consequence no women shortlisted. What a shame!
The CIOB has gone out of its way to make sure women were encouraged to apply, but when 99% of managers on site are men the pool is very small. Women have applied in the past – why aren’t they now?
We at Construction Youth Trust have been working hard for many years to support the drive to change the face of construction and over the last year launched our #notjustforboys campaign to encourage a sea change not just in the sector but in schools and wider communities to ensure that both young women and men see the opportunities and excitement of working in construction.
Our #notjustforboys campaign builds on the publication we developed with the Smith Institute in 2014 – Building the Future: Women in Construction. This informative and thought-provoking report continues to stimulate discussion and debate, and it is exactly the disappointment we all share so highlighted by the lack of female applicants to the CMYA which has driven us to refresh and reissue the report later this year.
We are not just talking diversity, we are also working hard to encourage young women into the sector through our programmes Budding Builders and Budding Brunels.
I am pleased to say that over the last year on our Brunels programme 33% of our students were girls, all of whom self-selected on to the course, proving that when you reach out, you can bring talent into our industry.
At the Trust, we also hold our Duke of Gloucester Young Achievers’ Scheme Awards for young professionals, celebrating those under 30 working in the sector. Every year we have almost 40% of our applications from women surveyors, engineers, architects and more many of them working on site and have had female category and overall winners.
There are many initiatives encouraging women into the sector, and the industry itself does its best to positively promote diversity. However, we clearly need more women construction managers and we need them on site.
Clearly more needs to be done, but let’s move on from the disappointment and build on success. One might argue that we have never faced such a challenge building and sustaining talent in the UK’s construction industry – we must capitalise on talent from all people and from all places so that we can change our industry for the better, together.
Christine Townley is executive director of the Construction Youth Trust
