{"id":137447,"date":"2024-02-27T11:26:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T11:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=137447"},"modified":"2024-03-07T13:18:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T13:18:39","slug":"highest-number-recorded-women-construction-apprenticeships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/hr-skills-news\/highest-number-recorded-women-construction-apprenticeships\/137447\/","title":{"rendered":"Highest number recorded of women in construction apprenticeships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protrade found that 10% of the estimated 24,530 people starting construction apprenticeships in 2022-23 were young women- an increase of 2% on the previous year<\/h2>\n

Despite the findings of Protrade<\/a> on the growing uptake of construction apprenticeships by women, general evidence there are still significant barriers to further uptake.<\/p>\n

Morgan Siddall\u2019s report Are we Gen Z ready?<\/a> revealed that 57% of women and girls are still put off from considering a career in the construction sector because they believe it is male-dominated. Further statistics back that notion, with only 12.37% of all engineers in the UK being female<\/a>, according to data published by the Women\u2019s Engineering Society (WES).<\/p>\n

As a sector, construction lags behind others in gender parity<\/h3>\n

There remains an imbalance in the UK construction sector and when compared against other industries for gender balance across roles, construction still sits last. Only 14.7% of those employed in the industry are women<\/a>, nearly 33% lower than the UK average.<\/p>\n

Craig Sanders, joint managing director at Protrade, said: \u201cWomen have always been in construction, but for a long time they\u2019ve only been associated with roles like architecture and design. There\u2019s a reason there has been a stigma about women and construction and comes down to the fact that, for a long time, women weren\u2019t often seen on-site.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a shift. Women are finding themselves in roles where it\u2019s not just about designing something but building it, too. As more and more women enter the industry, the old stereotypes are being removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGender equality has come a long way in the UK over the last decade and far more businesses, more than ever before, are seeking equality in the work environment. That itself will only encourage more women to follow suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly what we are seeing is that the construction sector is slowly becoming more inclusive but there is still a long way and many more hurdles to overcome to be at the same level as other leading industries with regards to diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, construction is struggling to attract more people<\/h3>\n

When analysing the last five years of apprenticeship uptake within construction, data shows that very little progress has been made since 2018.<\/p>\n

Approximately 22,700 people took up apprenticeship positions in construction between 2022-23, representing a decline year-on-year when compared to 2021-22 figures, which were at their highest over the last five years.<\/p>\n

The average construction apprenticeship role uptake in the UK over the last five years (2018-2023):<\/p>\n