Women in Construction, what has changed five years on?
(NewDesignWorld Press Release Center) -- In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, London was rocked by the July 7th bombs and the Labour Government outlawed fox hunting. Women made up only 1% of the total UK construction workforce with many women citing inflexible hours and working conditions of the industry as the main deterrent of seeking a career in construction.
Five years on in 2010, has much changed?
The world is still reeling from natural disasters in Pakistan and Haiti, security on all modes of transport is heightened, the UK government is now a coalition. However, there has been an 8% increase in the number of women working within construction1 with 19.7% stating that they chose building or engineering as they wanted a ‘different career’. How have the attitudes of the industry to women changed in five years?
The initial survey in 2005 was conducted by leading UK construction recruitment specialist, Hill McGlynn. Now known as Randstad Construction, Property & Engineering, they decided to revisit the survey and find out how perceptions and the reality of women working in construction has changed since 2005.
The 2010 survey shows an increase in women working in the Trades & Labour and Project Management disciplines and whilst 41.1% women still remain in office-based roles within the industry, 56.2% are now working both on and off-site within their roles. With site-based roles traditionally held by male counterparts, women are increasing their presence on-site.
These figures corroborate with the increase in women being recruited by Randstad CPE in the previous five years. In 2005, only 5.7% of Randstad CPE’s candidates placed were female, however, by 2010, this has almost double in number to 11.16% which included an increase in the traditionally male dominated roles such as General Foreman.
The most telling change in the attitude to women in the industry has been from employers with the inclusion in contracts for flexible working hours. 68% of the women surveyed felt that their employer would be sympathetic to more flexible hours if they were to have children. This is an increase of 13% within five years and reiterates what recruiters are seeing within the construction and engineering sectors. Employers are acknowledging that retention of good staff requires flexible working conditions and work/life balance approaches.
Whilst the survey results show that employers have made changes to accommodate women within the industry, some areas, such as sexism, are still rife with 91.9% of the survey respondents citing that they have been directly affected or witness to sexism within the industry.
The perception outside of the industry does seem to be changing and whilst over half of the women surveyed entered the industry as they had an interest in building or engineering, 19.7% responded that they were looking for a challenging or different career. This can only be a positive sign of the work the industry is doing to encourage a more diverse workforce and is reflected in some of the respondent’s comments:
“Being a woman in the trades is empowering. It is about learning a trade that you can use for the rest of your life. Earning a liveable wage, providing for your family and being proud of what you have accomplished at the end of the day!”
Whilst many aspects of the industry has changed in five years, there are still areas; such as sexism; which the industry as a whole needs to continue to work on.
The survey did highlight the growing trend of the ‘ageing’ workforce. In 2005, 40% of the women surveyed had worked in the industry for 6+ years. This has increased to over 65% five years on and if the industry continues to see a decline in new talent coming into the building and engineering sectors, this will only continue to rise.
Mark Bull, Managing Director of Randstad CPE commented:
“I am not surprised to see a rise within the number of women who have been working in the industry for over 10 years, in fact, in many ways, it is a positive sign that they are continuing to enjoy their work and that employers are becoming more flexible in working hours which our survey has also see an increase in. However, the concern for the industry must be the lack of new blood coming into the building and engineering market. It is inevitable, given the recent economic climate that we as an industry will be looking for the same level of new employees as we were back in 2005, but when the industry does pick up once more, it is the next generation workforce which will take our industry into the coming decades and we need to continue to promote and present our industry as one of sustainable career prospects. We will revisit this survey once again in 2015 and it will be interesting to see how far we have come in our attitudes to women in the industry over a full ten years.”
Ref: 1 Equal Opportunities Commission
For further information please contact:
Nancy Hargreaves,
Randstad CPE
nancy.hargreaves@randstadcpe.com
http://www.randstadcpe.com
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