National campaign calls for more ‘Women on the Tools’

A campaign has been launched that aims to encourage more women to consider careers in manual trades, such as plumbing and construction.

‘Women on the Tools’ wants the number of women working towards a career in trade roles to increase.  Currently, women make up around 11 percent of the 1.5 million people working in the construction-related industries, but only 2 percent are actually employed in manual trades.

The campaign is steering towards majorly growing this number in order to ensure women make up at least half of the manual trade workforce.

‘Women on the Tools’ will work with schools, colleges and directly with employers to call attention to the range of rewarding manual careers across a variety of sectors, including automotive and horticulture areas. The campaign has been developed by Women and Manual Trades, which is a charity that works to deliver information and direction to women and employers by running mentoring programmes.

The movement has already gained support from the construction industry including the UK’s best-known plumber, Charlie Mullins.

He said: “The manual trades offer some fantastic career opportunities with good earning potential, but unfortunately there’s a perception that these jobs are not for women. We’re always on the lookout for women tradespeople, but there just aren’t the numbers we want.  In my experience the women we have employed on the tools have been as talented and as committed as their male counterparts.”
19 year old Chloe Sayer from Reading is part of the 2 percent of women in manual trade. She is a plumbing apprentice with Pimlico Plumbers in Central London. Her main goal when leaving school was to find a job where she would never be out of work.

Sayer says, “I wanted a stable job, and plumbing certainly is that. The fact that I was learning trade, which is totally transferable that could take me anywhere in the world was also a massive appeal. I’d say to any woman looking to get into a trade that they should go for it – do what you want to do and don’t listen to any negativity.”