A recent Girls in Construction Day marked an exciting milestone for an initiative established by Design & Build UK to inspire more young girls to discover the opportunities accessible for women working within construction.

Design & Build UK’s upcoming feature, Building Futures Through Early Construction Education, explores the success of the event delivered independently for the first time.

Bringing together 30 primary school girls to participate in practical, construction-themed activities, the event was led by Jordan Duggan, ESG Group Director, coordinated by nine volunteers from the EFT Group and co-hosted with Scarisbrick Hall School, with support from Joanne Fisher of Building Careers UK, demonstrating how organisations and educators themselves, can embrace the initiative to introduce and supply the vital opportunities and career knowledge for the next generation of young girls.

From engineering, surveying and design to media and interviewing, the different activity stations challenged longstanding stereotypes and demonstrated the variety of skills and careers available for women across construction.

With women currently representing only 15% of the construction workforce, early careers education has an important role to play in widening aspirations before misconceptions about construction take hold.

Led by commentary from Jordan Duggan, the feature explores the importance of introducing young people to construction careers early. Drawing on her reflections from Girls in Construction Day, Duggan discusses the importance of challenging industry stereotypes, increasing awareness of the sector’s diverse career paths and how initiatives such as Girls in Construction are vital to introduce young girls to the breadth of opportunities that are available.

The positive response from the pupils illustrated just how powerful that early exposure can be, with the activities encouraging them to consider careers including architecture and structural engineering that may not previously have considered. The success of the event provides an encouraging example of what can be achieved when industry and education collaborate to widen aspirations, providing a glimpse of a possible shift in the evolution of construction.

Read our full feature, Building Futures Through Early Construction Education, in the upcoming issue of Design & Build UK magazine to discover how Girls in Construction Day is challenging stereotypes and helping the next generation see construction as an industry where they can belong.