WOMEN IN THE INDUSTRY
SPECIAL FEATURE
WHY ARE THERE SO FEW WOMEN IN ELECTRICAL CONTRACTING? Brett Smyth, general manager of Ideal Industries EMEA, asks why there are still so few female electricians and what can be done to attract more women into the sector. He also interviews Amy Barratt-Singh, an electrician the company is sponsoring, who has established a successful career after retraining as an electrician just four years ago.
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he days when schools segregated the girls into one classroom to learn cookery and needlework and the boys into another to do woodwork and metal craft may be long gone but, when it comes to electrical contracting, it would appear that gender stereotyping is alive and kicking. No doubt, education environments and family assumptions about the careers that boys and girls will follow play a part, but are there also unpalatable truths that we need to face up to as an industry? Has the electrical sector overlooked the diversity and inclusion agenda and failed to embrace the opportunity to recruit more women? Or, worse, is there a reluctance to disturb the status quo? Whatever the reasons for the scarcity of female electricians working ‘on the tools’, the perception for many would-be female electricians is that the industry is a hostile environment for women. Anecdotally, the evidence of women fighting against stereotypes to fulfil their ambitions in the sector demonstrates the scale of the challenge. For example, Amy Barratt-Singh, the electrician Ideal Industries is sponsoring through her excellent You Tube channel, told Brett that during her first job on site, there were no welfare facilities and she felt too intimidated to ask for them to be provided. As you’ll read in the interview that forms part of this article, Amy is a skilled and ambitious electrician who is much more likely to speak up for herself these days, but her experience highlights the issue facing both would-be female electricians and the employers that might recruit them. It is not just stereotyping and educational opportunity that need to be resolved, but an ingrained culture that assumes all electricians are male.
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Women in the Industry – Ideal.indd 29
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The good news is that things are beginning to change. There has been a 366% increase in young women beginning apprenticeships in construction or engineering over the past five years. But things are only changing slowly. Only 11.5% of female tradespeople across all site trades are women, and just 3% of electricians are female. At a time when we need to boost the number of skilled electricians to enable the roll out of electrical vehicle infrastructure, renewables technologies and smart buildings, these statistics are indicative of
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the scale of the challenge the electrical industry faces. If we need more electricians but most of the sector’s new recruits are being drawn from just half of the population – the male half – we’re missing a trick. And, unfortunately, it is a chicken and egg conundrum: with so few women working as electricians, the next generation of potential female professionals has to be prepared to work in a male dominated environment. As a result, the industry remains lacking in female role models and the slow pace of change remains frustratingly slow.
It would appear that gender stereotyping is alive and kicking
June 2021 | 29
25/05/2021 16:49
