When you imagine a builder, what picture springs to mind? Wolf-whistling lads on site? Full English at the local caff with towers of buttered bread? Low-slung trousers straining to contain a backside? For most of my life, I’ve never given much thought to these lazy stereotypes. Of course, I knew houses and offices got built, but any further detail was foggy. Over the past two decades working as a fashion journalist and author, let’s just say construction wasn’t exactly front of mind. That space was occupied with hemlines, heels and hot trends.
My disconnect is neither surprising nor uncommon. Currently just 1% of skilled construction site workers are women, and the gender pay gap is appalling – 95.6% of women in construction companies with reported data get paid less than men. Women tilers earn 59% less than men, female electricians 46% less and plumbers are 39% down. We should be up in arms and out on the streets for these women.
So why and how have I – a 42-year-old middle-class woman with two children under seven and a lifelong predilection for 4in stilettos – decided to swap high fashion for a hard hat? Like so many women of my generation, my career hasn’t gone in a straight line – more like an unhinged rollercoaster.
After spending the noughties and 2010s zigzagging across the globe as a magazine fashion editor, I took my first career pivot. I’m now 10 years deep into content creating – collaborating with fashion and home brands to make social media content. Five years ago, I followed another spoke and have since written 15 books as an author and ghostwriter. I’ve become the very model of a self-made, multi-channelled millennial woman.
It was while I was writing my last book, Your Not Forever Home, about rental decor, that I started digging into why so many women believe they aren’t up to DIY. I’ve always been handy thanks to lessons from my grandparents, but I’ve made plenty of mistakes: a pair of curtains 15cm different in length, my face sprayed with boiling water while changing a tap, self-hung shelves falling on my head, cutting off the electricity to the ground floor… the list is endless. No more, though, than a bloke.
So when I read the statistics about the construction industry, it lit a little fire inside me. With that paucity of female industry role models, no wonder it’s hard for women to imagine themselves in a tool belt, even as an amateur just hanging a picture frame at home.
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Then, last summer, my husband and I bought the family home we’d been renting for the past three years, my youngest son started reception and the die was cast: I was going to gain the skills and qualifications I needed to rebuild our beautiful but dilapidated house.
I had to consider the costs carefully. Luckily, I’d already created a flexible career, so while retraining has piled on logistical pressure, I knew I could stretch my schedule while still covering my bills. I settled on a course at a local community college because it offers training across five trades, from brickwork to carpentry, and I wanted to try them all to see where I was best suited. It costs £250 a month for three days a week and by the end I’ll earn a City & Guilds certificate, which will enable me to begin the next level of qualification along my chosen path.
When I spoke to my peers about my plans, though, their response was scarily uniform. ‘Construction would be my worst nightmare,’ they parroted (as I likely would have, too, until a few years ago). The physicality, the prejudice, the dirt, the blue-collar status, the sexual attention. The list of cons cited seemed insurmountable…
Then came induction day and I was a total fish out of water. I was one of six women in a room of 150 men and boys, most aged 16–18. Mortifyingly, some of them thought I was a teacher, calling me ‘miss’ and hiding their phones when I approached.
But the college proved to be inclusive – now I’m four months in, with three other ‘mature’ women also pivoting their careers, and I feel very much a part of the furniture. So far, the tutors have been encouraging and I cannot explain the joy I feel in working with my hands. Surveying my first return wall – built with my red acrylic nail extensions intact – I felt a huge sense of accomplishment.
While the stereotypes are rough, I can now say from experience that so much of the work in construction is delicate and meticulous, requiring dexterity, precision, creativity and even artistry. The line between the trades and craft is so arbitrary. Why is bricklaying – a skill that takes years to master – not seen as the art form it is? Plus, experienced brickies running their own businesses can earn more than £100k a year. Construction roles can offer a lucrative, fulfilling, in-demand and AI-proof career ladder. Why are we gals counting ourselves out?
Obviously, any career pivot comes with stomach lurches. I’m still doing my old work to pay for the new. Manual work is tiring, but in all honesty, in comparison with a day in the trenches with toddlers, it’s manageable. I refuse to let the whispers of doubt win.
After I pass my assessments, I’ll look for an apprenticeship in a small, local firm and begin building a team for my own home renovation; my dream is to create a female-led design-and-build company. There are many reasons why women might prefer to work with tradeswomen in their home, not least that so many of my friends tell me their builder will only speak to their husband. I would love to serve them better.
To any other woman thinking about retraining in a trade, I just want to say: go for it. It won’t be easy. You’ll wonder what the hell you’re doing and not everyone will cheerlead you. But if you enjoy working with your hands, are desperate to get away from your laptop and would like to earn good money while keeping your body spry, get googling local adult construction courses. It’s high time we girls started kicking up some dust.
I still double-take when I look at myself in the mirror, covered in lime, wearing steel-capped boots. But I’d like to think my experience in fashion has shown me that style isn’t just about the clothes you wear. Although there’s usually a Sézane knit under my hi-vis vest, and my eyeliner flick and lippy are mostly in place – some habits die hard.
