Presenting the Opportunities Available to Women in Construction

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Kelly Sowden and Sophie Dick hosted a presentation at Temple Moor High School in Leeds to Year 11 students, to promote engineering roles and role for women in engineering.

They discussed the different types of engineering and how John Sisk & Son aim to increase the number of women they hire into the industry. Gender specific roles are slowly diminishing, and John Sisk & Son is growing in gender diversity, as demonstrated in the LPTIP team in Leeds.

Kelly and Sophie also talked about the work experience and apprenticeship opportunities we have available for both boys and girls in various roles including quantity surveying, site management and engineering.

Sophie spoke about her journey into becoming an apprentice site manager; after studying psychology and sociology at A-level, she soon discovered she didn’t want to pursue a career in either of those fields and turned to construction as an option, following in her father’s footsteps.

The students were very engaged in the presentation and it was clear that some of them were inspired to consider engineering as a career, and the female students particularly wanted to defeat the misconception of gender specific roles.