Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) invited female pupils from secondary schools across the town and beyond to its Women in Construction Day on Wednesday, December 10.
Pupils from Brighton Hill, The Harrow Way, Bishop Challoner and Cranbourne were invited to the event which saw them get hands-on, making their own burglar alarms and cross-halving joints in the technology rooms.
They were also given short lectures from women at the top of their game in the construction industry, including Jennie Ellis, regional social value manager at Wates, Hannah Browne, HR and apprenticeship manager at Trident Electrical, Jo Murphy, bond and adoptions manager at Taylor Wimpey, among others.
Steve Gilder, head of construction at BCoT, organised the day to inspire the next generation of women in the industry.
He said: “It’s for women, by women.
“As the head of construction, I have organised it, but I’ve ensured that all my female staff are leading the different sessions, and all my guest speakers are all females from the sector.
“There is a terrible shortage of young people coming into construction full stop, and at the moment, only about 14-15 per cent of the current two and a half million that are involved in construction are females.”
He explained that there is a popular misconception that construction is “a man’s game,” but added, “it isn’t, because only a tiny percentage of the roles within construction involve physical strength.
“It involves the problem solvers, the innovators, the managers, the leaders. Females consistently outperform males at GCSE, so, from a selfish perspective, I want the smartest and brightest people in my department, and at the moment, less than 5 per cent of the 412 students that I’ve got are female.”
Pupils at the event were tasked with carrying out their own construction and engineering project with Lego. They were asked to organise themselves into roles such as project manager, inventory manager, construction lead and construction assistant, and given 40 minutes to come up with a creation.
Pupils were also tasked with designing a simple burglar alarm circuit. They were allowed to choose their own sensor and door switches and beam sensors, following a circuit diagram to connect it all together and set off a buzzer.
Mr Gilder explained that there is a “real opportunity” for women in the construction industry going forward, with ambitious housing targets from the government and an aging workforce contributing to this.
He added: “I think this generation of females have got a real opportunity to break down some of those stereotypes.
“It’s a sector that’s really looking to invest in its people. It’s a sector that’s looking to take on an extra 250,000 people over the next five years to meet the ambitions of building the country.
“This is my 22nd year in further education, and I’ve never been approached more often by employers, because I think they realise now that it is an ageing workforce. It’s all full of old people like myself, so they’re really now looking to bring on that next generation.
“The government’s got ambitious targets, 1.5 million houses, but it’s not just the houses, it’s the infrastructure that goes around it. It’s the roads, it’s the bridges, it’s the waste management, it’s the power connection,it’s the keeping up to date with the digital demands, so these hundred billion pound gigafactories that are going up left, right, and centre – it all, all leads to a sector that is prepared to put people through university, prepare to give them continual training, prepare to pay them double, triple the annual salary than the UK average.”
Read more here: Click Here
