Two enterprises, One Way and The Clear Company, are keen to promote greater levels of worker equality in the construction industry and have urged members of the industry to consider this a top priority for 2017. One of the reasons it seems for the apparent shortage in skills supply that is of a great concern to businesses in the building and construction industry is the high level of unequal representation among overwhelmingly male workers. It has been discovered that only 11 per cent of members of the building and construction workforce are women.

As if this were not enough of an alarming statistic, it was equally found that only a single one per cent of onsite employees were women. As Mister Paul Payne the MD of One Way suggests, the fact that 61 per cent building companies around the country are concerned with the shortage of skilled workers is not merely due to a single socio-economic factor that is the lack of investment in the trade. It is also due to the social stigma that accompanies women working in the building and construction industry: such a tiny figure of women working in construction is clearly a sign that social attitudes need to change in order for the construction workforce in Britain to be revitalized. One Way have in fact initiated a #GirlsAllowed initiative on social media already and it is the hope that this project will encourage more women studying in the country to consider the building and construction industries as a career path for themselves.

Similarly, Ms Katie Headley of The Clear Company, a firm that specializes in diversifying all too exclusive industries around the country, is adamant that something needs to be done by way of changing social attitudes towards women who choose construction as a way of life. Truthfulness and changes to attitudes, she explains, are what is key to solving the problem of shortages in the building and construction industry in Britain.