Gender diversity needs to be a strategic priority if the built environment industry is to tackle skills crisis

Tackling the UK construction sector’s biggest challenge will prove impossible as long as businesses persist in simultaneously paying ‘lip service’ to gender diversity while refusing to make structural and cultural changes to their operations, according to the Circle Partnership.

PwC’s latest ‘Women in Work’ index report measures factors such as the gender pay gap and employment levels. It shows that women’s worsening unemployment and participation in the workforce has pulled the UK to a shameful 27th out of 33 OECD’s most important economies.

This is at a time when British construction is attempting to juggle the simultaneous needs of rapidly increasing output while experiencing chronic labour supply issues. If the construction sector is to move past these challenges, it must stop merely talking about the need for greater gender diversity and make concrete steps to changing the composition and culture of the sector.

Last week, at UKREiiF where representatives from across the built environment industry came together to debate the most pressing issues facing the sector, sentiment suggested that the skills crisis remains the industry’s biggest and most pressing obstacle to growth. With so many highly skilled female professionals either under employed or having left the sector, urgent action in this space is needed if we are to support a thriving industry.

Ceri Moyers, Director of The Circle Partnership, an organisation supporting businesses from across the built environment to combat the skills crisis through retaining their existing female talent commented: “Businesses continue to see gender diversity as a ‘specialist’ priority – and one that can be dumped in favour of more critical issues depending on international sentiment or other market pressures. We have to wake up to the role that gender diversity has to play as a direct means of addressing the chronic skills shortage – and this has to start with businesses investing in retaining their existing female talent. Companies are spending £100,000s on staff churn and on recruiting new staff and this is money that could be better spent in keeping the women they already have.”

Current statistics show that 49 per cent of women leave the built environment sector before the age of 34 – figures that are playing into these global gender equality rankings. This talent drain also means that economy is missing out on the some £15-22 billion that Blackrock calculate would be delivered through unleashing women’s full potential.

Failing to focus on initiatives to retain their existing diversity means that businesses are also actively hampering their future talent pipeline: 87 per cent of GenZ consider the DEI of a workplace and 56 per cent will not work for a business without a diverse leadership.

Moyers added: “Our industry requires some 100,000 new roles per year for next five years to simply sustain growth. Ensuring we’re investing in keeping the diverse talent we already have must be seen as an urgent priority – not only to keep the wheels turning, but to ensure that businesses remain competitive and attractive to potential future talent.”