Women in Construction

We are grateful to have such a diverse and talented group of individuals driving our company forward. Thank you to all the amazing women at Ardmac for being a driving force behind our success. #InspiringInclusion

Construction is a fast paced industry and full of opportunities for growth. Employee retention has challenged companies to look at flexible ways of working and take on board feedback from employees on how personal agendas at all levels can be supported – this in turn can help attract women into our industry by supporting the work life balance that many women seek.

Females starting off their careers in engineering, design, QS or architecture should want to join a company where there are opportunities for growth, investment in people development and an opportunity to work with different cultures and sectors – construction provides all of these opportunities. If you are good at what you do, the opportunities to succeed in the construction industry have never been better. While traditionally a male dominated industry, continued expansion is changing previously held beliefs and the construction industry has recognised that female participation is vital to its success. Technology and investment in people is making construction a vast and diverse industry and the benefits for women can be immense.

Building Better, Together.

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Championing Women in Construction

Full Name: Helen Davies
Role|Title: Construction Management Graduate

How did you hear about Ardmac’s graduate programme?
I came across Ardmac’s graduate programme when searching for roles in the construction industry via LinkedIn

Read full interview here

Full Name: Oana Duta
Role|Title: Graduate Architectural Technologist

Tell us about your first job in the industry?
This is my first job in the industry as I only graduated about 1.5 years ago. There have proven to be a lot of learning experiences which I hope to implement to become better in my current role.

Read full interview here

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Full Name: Lauren O’Shea​
Role|Title: SHEQ advisor

What’s the biggest change you think would benefit women in the industry?
If the word continues to spread. More and more women are joining the industry and to be sure that continues, it is down to the industry itself to promote and welcome more women into the construction world. Businesses should talk more about the positions and opportunities that are available. More young people should be aware of the industry evolving.

Read full interview here

Full Name: Suzana Dobrescu
Role|Title: Regional QC Advisor

Your advice to women considering a career in the construction industry?
I would tell them to trust their own calling and to join the construction industry if they feel attracted towards it. I would advise them to surround themselves with people that they admire, and they can learn a lot from them. 

Read full interview here

Full Name: Catherine Greene
Role|Title: Senior Quantity Surveyor

I didn’t even know what a Quantity Surveyor was or what their job involved until I was talking to my Dad on what direction / career path to pursue. He works in Construction and asked me if I ever considered Quantity Surveying or Engineering. Coming from an all-girls school Construction and Engineering careers were never fully endorsed in any detail.

Read full interview here

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Full Name: Phillipa King-Smith
Role|Title: Business Development & Mechanical Engineer

My mother was the owner and MD of a builders merchants. The MD of my first job at the engineering firm I worked at straight after university, was a female also. Both strong role models, in my life and early career, I never saw my gender as a barrier to success. In fact, females leading in successful companies was all I knew in my early career.

Read full interview here

Women in STEM

Article by Michael Quinn, Director of Engineering

As part of their guidelines for the 2018 employment policies of the Member States, the council of the European Union determined that all Union members should work to ensure gender equality and increased labour market #participation by women.

CSO figures indicate that the construction industry in Ireland currently has the highest number of women working in the industry on record, with the figure increasing by 25% in 2021 to a total of 14,400. Despite this, women still only make up approximately 9% of the overall construction workforce in the country.

The figures specific to Women in STEM in Ireland make for slightly better reading, with the CSO reporting 25% of jobs that require STEM skills are currently occupied by women. However, with only 1 in every 6 engineering graduates being female the likelihood is that the figure for Women in Construction related STEM roles is much lower.

Given the career opportunities available, the impact made by the industry worldwide and the innovation happening on an ongoing basis, this no longer makes sense.

Along with current global supply chain issues, the shortage of personnel is seen as the greatest challenge facing the construction industry in Ireland.  Over the coming years, this is likely to be the single biggest barrier to achieving Government targets for house building, the current National Development Plan and continuing to support the growth of multi-national companies in Ireland.

Over the past 20 years, I have seen the construction industry undergo significant advancement in terms of health and safety, digitalisation, and the application of technology with a ‘work-smarter-not-harder’ philosophy being adopted.  At Ardmac, we “Work Smart”, meaning we deploy innovative technology throughout our business to empower our people, drive performance and delight our customers.  To support this advancement, the types of roles within the construction industry have had to evolve with multiple new technology-based roles emerging and the level of physically demanding roles reducing.

This is especially true in the high-tech sectors in which Ardmac operate. As a leading provider of complex turn-key solutions to the cleanroom and data centre sectors, our business is engineering led.  We aim to employ the brightest and the best for all disciplines within the company, regardless of demographics, to ensure we continue to provide Excellence as Standard to our Clients.

Over 70% of construction firms are said to fully recognise the need for more women in the industry.  It is also clear that there is a huge shortage in construction personnel and that there are more diverse and well-paid roles available within the industry. Despite all this, the uptake of construction sector roles by women remains low. A significant amount of good work has been undertaken over the past few years by organisations such as the CIF and Engineers Ireland to promote the industry as inclusive and diverse, but the sector still remains one of the most gender-segregated in the world.

The reason for this appears to be down to the perception of the industry that still exists. As part of a 2018 survey carried out by the CIF for their #BuildingEquality campaign it was suggested that the Construction Industry had an image problem. One of the comments received relating to this was as follows:

“I think many women when they think of the construction industry think or hard hats, cold weather, dirty building sites and a lot of physical labour. Add to that a perception that it is male oriented, and you can see why it may not be viewed as an attractive career for a woman.” (Senior female professional)

As part of Engineer’s Ireland STEPS programme for Engineering Week, I recently gave a presentation to approximately 100 female transition year students on engineering as a career.  When I asked the group what their impression of the construction industry and engineering as a career was, much of the initial feedback I received was in line with the above quote.  Whilst us within the industry know that careers in construction have changed considerably, becoming more flexible, more technology driven, safer and less physically demanding, there is still much work to do in getting this message across to the wider population.

Key factors encouraging men into the industry include culture, representation, confidence and opportunity and we need to establish these more strongly for women now. At Ardmac, we are working hard to implement the following actions to encourage more women into Engineering and Construction, and we encourage all members to do the same –

All roles within the construction industry should be and need to be open to women.

The key is ensuring that this message is clearly communicated and that the actions of the industry demonstrate this to be true. We need to ensure recruitment campaigns are described and advertised in such a way as to attract a diverse group of applicants.

We need to ensure young women have the same opportunity and exposure to careers in the sector.

From a young age, men see family members, contacts and connections working in the industry. It has been socially acceptable in society for generations for men to see construction as a viable long-term career. They also benefit from being offered subjects at school which provide insights into the work involved and building confidence in their abilities to do the work and find it rewarding. Career offices promote engineering to young men, meaning key elements of the funnel channelling young men into the industry exist as standard. We need to do the same for young women.

We need to normalise STEM careers for men and women starting at primary school.

This includes representation, experience of the work, understanding the impact of the work and training /experience of the type of work involved. We need to continue to work with careers offices within schools to promote the opportunities available and put forward the women and men of our industry who have forged successful careers.

We need to promote the value and impact of the construction industry.

We need to make sure we are conveying the right message to women in promoting these roles. The industry needs to focus on recruitment campaigns that present the vision of the industry and its impact on people and their quality of life. Communicating the contribution that construction projects make to people’s lives and the challenging and fulfilling roles available in the industry will help to attract the right calibre of people.  Employees at Ardmac are lucky to experience this on an on-going basis as we contribute to the delivery of exciting and innovative projects in the life sciences sector, from mobile micro-vaccine production facilities to large scale drug manufacturing facilities.  A career in the construction industry can take you all over the world and present you with the opportunity to be involved in hugely rewarding projects where, regardless of demographics, you can make a significant contribution to the project and society itself.

Our Director of Engineering, Michael Quinn is visiting schools this year to showcase what a varied career construction can offer and highlight that all roles are open to our young girls.

#An Engineer Built That

The aim of our school tours and visits is to promote construction and engineering to young people, especially girls. There is a male dominated industry bias and we want to show young students that a career in construction is open to everyone. We hope that young girls are encouraged to take on STEM subjects early on and in turn build our future.

If you would like to organise a school visit for your pupils or classmates please contact damien.cunningham@ardmac.com #BreaktheBias

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