I was very concerned to see that your article, “The X Factor”, in the September edition on the range of candidates and graduate did not include any women as examples, just depictions of four young men on the cover and no mention of women at all in the article itself.

As someone who has campaigned for years for more women in the construction industry and in the built environment professions and professional education, I feel really let down by this, and yet again you are shooting yourself in the foot: one of the ways to solve the “manpower” crisis in construction is to attract more women, mature candidates and ethnic minority groups.

This is not simply about equal opportunities or political correctness – one could argue that ignoring half the population does not serve the industry well. Indeed, Andrew Gale commented that if every 16-year-old boy went into construction as a career there would still not be enough people to meet the needs of the industry.

Dr Clara Greed

Source

Construction Manager