Challenges facing women in the construction industry
Women are a minority in the construction workforce, but the picture is more nuanced than a single statistic suggests, with meaningful progress in some areas alongside persistent, practical barriers in others. Understanding both sides gives a clearer view of what still needs to change.
How Many Women Work in Construction in the UK?
According to the latest complete annual figures from the ONS Labour Force Survey, 340,000 women were employed in UK construction in 2025, up from 298,000 the year before.
That increase is a positive signal, though it’s worth noting that female representation across individual construction trades remains low enough that the ONS sometimes has to suppress figures for specific roles due to small sample sizes, a reminder that overall growth doesn’t necessarily translate into representation across every part of the industry.
Breaking Into a Traditionally Male-Dominated Industry
Before women even enter construction, several barriers can shape their decisions. Persistent perceptions of construction as fundamentally a male career, a lack of visible female role models, and limited awareness of the full breadth of roles available, from technical and design positions through to site trades, all play a part in who considers the industry in the first place.
There are encouraging signs of change, however: CITB reports that the number of women completing construction apprenticeships has tripled since 2018, while also cautioning that this progress needs to translate into secure, long-term careers rather than remaining a one-off entry statistic.
The Everyday Challenges Women Can Face On Site
Once in the industry, practical working conditions designed around a historically male workforce can create very real obstacles. Poorly fitting PPE remains a common complaint, along with inadequate female toilet facilities on many sites, and the everyday experience of being the only woman in a team or meeting.
Women working in practical, hands-on roles handle the same everyday materials as their male colleagues: timber, bricks, plasterboard and the rest, which makes appropriately fitted PPE and suitable site facilities basic workplace requirements rather than optional extras.
Workplace Culture, Progression and Retaining Women
Beyond physical working conditions, culture plays a significant role in whether women build lasting careers in construction. Government research identifies isolation, sexism, sexual harassment and bullying as recognised barriers within male-dominated workplaces, construction included, alongside more structural issues around progression opportunities.
Traditional site working patterns can also make work-life balance particularly difficult to sustain. Here too, there’s evidence that change is possible without compromising delivery: a construction-sector flexible-working pilot found that introducing greater site-based flexibility didn’t adversely affect project budgets or timescales, suggesting that more adaptable working patterns are a genuinely viable route to improving retention rather than a trade-off against project performance.
