In support of National Women in Engineering Day, tradesmen are being encouraged to speak with their daughters about being electricians. Electrical industry body, NICEIC, carried out a survey that showed three quarters of male electricians would be pleased for their daughter(s) to go into a career in the trade, although a similar number also stated that they believe women would be discouraged from doing so due to old fashioned attitudes in the trade. The results also showed that just one in five daughters had received any advice from education services on careers in the trade. The ‘Jobs for the Girls’ campaign led by the NICEIC was established to encourage more women to take up a career in the trade and in the process plugging the growing gender and skills gaps. NICEIC’s Chief Executive Officer, Emma Clancy, said that dads can play a very significant role in shaping their daughters’ career decisions, in particular in the trades sector where children historically follow in their father’s footsteps. Ms Clancy hopes that National Women in Engineering Day can act as a catalyst for more and more women to take up a career in the industry, with encouragement from their fathers. The ‘Jobs for the Girls’ campaign was first launched five years ago and since then more women have taken up a career in the industry, although numbers are still very low. The survey asked over 100 electrical contractors their opinions about women in the sector and found that 90% of fathers feel it is their responsibility to give their daughters advice on career decisions. However, only 20% of dads believe their child has received sufficient information from careers advice services or schools about opportunities in the trade. Meanwhile, a quarter of the electricians surveyed said that their daughter has considered becoming an electrician, which is a significantly higher number than women entering the trade.

A number of residential building projects throughout London have stalled because of rising construction costs, with numerous developers looking to renegotiate with planners due to their schemes no longer being viable. A labour shortage has pushed construction costs in London upwards, with estimates from developers and contractors suggesting a rise of up to 10% in the last year. One consultancy firm, Arcadis, said that they are now the second highest in the world behind New York. A private developer with £3.6 billion worth of projects under construction, Galliard Homes, said that its Capital Towers development in East London is no longer viable in its current incarnation due to the high build cost inflation from 2014 to 2015, with certain works packages rising by a significant amount above the average increase rate. The developer has applied for a reduction in the payments it has to make to the local authority in terms of affordable home construction. This cut in the mandatory payment will aim to restore the company’s profit margin. Another developer building 71 apartments, Loromah Estates, secured concessions from the London borough of Lewisham at the end of 2015 on its construction of affordable homes, on the basis that the projects were no longer viable due to ‘abnormally high construction costs.’ In May this year, a 34 unit scheme in Woolwich also secured similar concessions, also citing high construction costs. Essential Living, another developer that builds homes for rent, scrapped its primary contractors on a London Docklands project earlier this year as part of a wider company effort to control finances. However, the scheme is still without a start date, even though it was due to begin in 2014. Chief Executive of Cast (a planning consultancy), Mark Farmer, said that the issue is widespread throughout the industry and pointed out some schemes that may no longer go ahead due to these issues.