Are the trades still 'jobs for the boys'?

Women are making strides in traditionally male-dominated careers but they need encouragement and support at a much earlier age to get a foot in the door

Jen Kelly of Women in Trades Network Ireland (WITNI). Picture: Morley Von Sternberg

The traditional school model tended to focus on gender when it came to subject choices, which is still the case in many same-sex institutions. All-girls students are offered home economics while many all-boys’ schools do not, and woodwork and tech drawing are often limited choices for females unless they are attending a co-ed.

Change is happening, albeit at a slow pace. Over the past 10 years, schools have been actively encouraging female students to take on STEM subjects, fuelled by the fact that Irish firms are struggling to fill such roles.

There is also an acute shortage of tradespeople, a role traditionally considered to be ‘man’s work’. And although many women are showing an interest in a career in the trades, evidence shows they do not always get the support — from schools, their families, or even society — to pursue their choice.

Apprenticeships, which combine and alternate learning in the workplace with learning in an education or training centre, are becoming more popular.

In February this year, the number of women apprentices surpassed 1,000 for the first time in the history of apprenticeship in Ireland rising from just 26 in 2015.

Science graduate Zoe Fitzgerald became the 1,000th apprentice, starting a two-year accounting technician apprenticeship with Cork County Council.

Zoe sat her Leaving Cert in 2015, achieving 505 points, and graduated in 2019. She then took a gap year to decide on what she wanted to do and started to look at different options.

“At school, I really liked science and business, taking them for the Leaving Cert, as well as accounting. I also enjoyed maths, figures and numbers, so when I saw the Accounting Technician apprenticeship, it appealed to me and seemed like a great fit.

“Cork City Council have supported me immensely. I have a main mentor who is a financial accountant and the whole team is really helpful. They regularly check-in on me, making sure I have everything I need. If anything, I hope more women consider it as a worthwhile option for them to progress in their own studies and careers.” 

But while the popularity of apprenticeships is increasing among young people generally, women still only account for 5.2% of uptake.

So while progress is being made, particularly with apprenticeships, old habits — and society’s attitudes — die hard.

Network

Jen Kelly set up Women In Trades Network Ireland, an independent grassroots initiative for working Irish tradeswomen and those seeking careers in the skilled trades, in 2016.

At that time, she had a decade of local and international experience as an industrial abseiler in construction and energy but had been trying for five years, without success, to get an apprenticeship in Ireland. This provided the motivation for her to set up the network.

Jen, who is currently based in Melbourne, Australia, says: “Starting a national conversation about tradeswomen just made sense. In the 2016 media landscape, we barely saw women with tools unless they were bikini-clad, posted alongside tradesmen.

“It’s safe to say the recession played a big part in the first part of my struggle (to get an apprenticeship). But when post-recession construction started humming again, I was seeing new starts in Europe, UK, US and Australia, but nowhere on home turf.

“It was one particular hurtful rejection from a well-known Irish company I applied to for an apprenticeship that was a pivotal moment for me. I had had enough. I thought: 

If I am finding this so hard, even with all my experience, how on earth do women with no experience get a fair go here?

Jen says that Women In Trades Network Ireland grew by word of mouth, with her mission being to seek out the working tradeswomen of Ireland.

“I started working with local tradeswomen, photographers and storytellers to capture images of women working on the tools. We were able to showcase through the media the gaping hole in representation, sending out a new message to Irish women; ‘This is your trade too!’.

“Crucial to our work is guiding hundreds of aspiring apprentices with gusto. I’m really proud of what we have done, individually and collectively, to shake up a stale view on what is women’s work.” Jen keeps a close eye of what is happening in the trades sector outside of Ireland.

“There are women in the US who undertake apprenticeships into their 50s. There are Australian classes in crane driving, welding and carpentry that are filled with women.” However, she believes that despite the global shift around gender equality in the last few years, there continues to be prejudices that deter women from taking up careers in the trades in Ireland.

“One woman mentions three interviews in a row where she is asked if she is planning to have children. “Maybe trades is a bad idea. They really don’t want women, do they?”, she said to me.

“Another is told not to bother turning up to perform a trade task during her training course because the visiting employer will only hire men. And another went to her local employment centre asking about starting a mechanics apprenticeship and was told to consider childminding instead.

A tradeswoman sole-trader of 30 years still gets asked on arrival where the boss is. 

"And if you think my five-year job hunt was hard, there’s a woman who searched for 10 years before she got her apprenticeship.” 

There are initiatives that are encouraging more women into the trades. In a scheme launched earlier this year, employers will now be paid more to take on women and lone parents as apprentices. 

All employers will receive €3,000 grant for every apprentice they take on, but will get increased State funding if they employ a woman.

On top of this, an extra bonus grant of almost €3,000 will be paid to employers who hire female apprentice plumbers, plasterers, butchers, mechanics, sous chefs, industrial electrical engineers and other trades which are still 80% male.

Taskforce

However, a lot remains to be done. On the WITNI’s wishlist is to participate in a cross-industry taskforce focused on workforce diversity.

“The ideal taskforce would include representatives from minority groups as well as industry leaders, educators, unions, and policy makers. It’s a collaborative move where the work of individual groups benefits the whole. This approach has proven spectacularly successful overseas,” explains Jen.

“During Covid lockdown, the number of women contacting WITNI increased. Their focus moved away from the jobs they had lost and toward the careers they had dreamed of in trades. “Careers guidance teachers have been referring their students to WITNI saying they lack the resources to help them. It’s been a challenge lately to be able to respond to all requests that come our way.

“Some of Ireland’s major industries are suffering a labour shortage. One problem they don’t have is a lack of interest from women keen to get onto the tools…We have always been here. We’ve been knocking on the door for decades.” 

• WITNI 
• apprenticeship.ie

Aisling O’Brien: Site manager

Aisling O'Brien, project manager at O'Brien Builders, pictured working on the Maternity Hospital in Limerick. Pic: Brian Arthur

Working on a building site is a real family affair for 29-year-old Aisling O’Brien. She is site manager at O'Brien Builders and Civil Engineering Construction in Miltown Malbay in Co Clare. Her mother and father, Terence and Noreen, are directors of the company and her brother Anthony is a foreman.

“I grew up around building sites,” she says. “After school, I went working on a site, in the office, even as a lorry driver.” 

Aisling lived in Australia for a few years where she worked in a building agency. When she returned to Ireland in 2016, she took up a role of assistant manager at the family business and is now site manager.

Her job has involved a number of primary healthcare projects, including design and builds. One of the recent projects was the overhaul of the neonatal unit at University Hospital Limerick.

So what attracted her to this line of work?

“I was always good at drawing and enjoyed problem solving - there’s a lot of that in my job. Since Covid, we have to keep designs moving and make sure it’s not a long drawn-out process.

Aisling enjoys being a female lead in a typically male dominated industry and says she is lucky to have plenty of support.

“I get on very well with all the lads. Most will help and be obliging. The odd man will come in and be looking for the boss, but that goes once they realise that I’m the boss.” 

Attitudes are changing but she still feels the mentality that men do all the hard graft still exists in society.

“It’s changing though. Women are creeping through different industries. But it’s getting a start that can be the most challenging thing.

“When I did woodwork at school, there were only two females doing it — there were 12 males.” What advice does she give to other women looking to get into an industry that would be traditionally male?

“Get confidence in yourself, and believe in what you can do. People will tell you you can’t and you will be undermined, but you have to keep going, keep at it. Don’t listen to those who say you can’t.

“It can be difficult being the only girl, it’s not always an easy job but you just drive on.”

Jenny Thompson: Painter and decorator

Jenny Thompson. Picture: Barry Cronin

Jenny Thompson, 56, runs her own painting and decorating business (Kelly and Thompson Ltd) in Dublin.

She wanted to take up a trade after school but her family encouraged her towards third level and she went on to study environmental management. She travelled to the US on a J1 and ended up extending her visa to take up an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator.

“It was pure chance that led me to take up this career,” she says. “I was amazed to discover some all-female crews over there. An Irish friend worked with one of them and asked if I would be interested in getting a job.” 

Setting up her own business when she returned to Ireland was daunting but the training she’d received in the US was far superior to what she would have had in Ireland during the 80s.

Her company works mainly in the residential sector, covering high-end interiors and large exterior projects.

Jenny takes on a new female apprentice every year in a bid to encourage women into the trades.

“Trades are still a bit of a ‘boys club’ and viewed as the bottom rung of the ladder,” she says. “I think it’s important that those attitudes change.

“All the women who have trained with our company have gone on to work for themselves and have set up their own successful businesses.

“The women that I know in the business are brilliant, they have fallen into the career - they have chosen it.” She believes support from families and schools in the early days is vital.

“It would have made a huge difference had I been encouraged rather than discouraged away from this career when I was younger.

“Working in the trades is a rewarding career. You can travel and pick up work anywhere in the world.”

Mairead Corcoran: Articulated trucks driver

Mairead Corcoran, articulated lorry driver.

Mairéad, 26, from Athy in Kildare, didn’t really know what she wanted to do when she left school. Her father was involved in construction and she’d tagged along with him when she was younger while her mother was at the hairdressers.

Mairéad did a textile floor cover installation course with the KWETB/Irish flooring training academy in Athy.

“I was the first woman to do the course,” she says.

After that got her driving licence as she was struggling to find work without it but she ended up working in a warehouse as she couldn’t get a start in the flooring career.

“The job was okay but it wasn’t where I wanted to be,” she explains.

It was only when she got the opportunity to attend a Women in Trades Conference in the US that she got the motivation to apply for her articulated dumper licence.

“Jen (from the Women in Trade Network Ireland) and a few other women went the year before me and I had seen the video and all they posted. So I saved my ass off and went the next year. It was such an experience.” Once she had her licence, Mairead trained at Kearney Training and Consultancy Ltd in Portlaoise, which then put her in touch with a family firm Donohue Plant Sales and Rental.

“They rang me about a trial run and it went well. I'm in full time employment with them now.

“I knew when I went for the job that this is what I wanted,” she says. “I didn’t even ask about the money — that’s how much I wanted the job.

“If you gave me €2m a year for an office job, I wouldn’t do it,” she laughs.

“I get great support at work — I’m just one of the lads!”

Eibhilín Hennessy: Engineering apprentice

Eibhlín Hennessy, electrical engineer

Eibhilín, 24, is from Dungarvan, Co Waterford, and works for Thermo Fisher Scientific in Currabinny, Cork. 

After she left school, she began an electrical instrumentation engineering apprenticeship at GSK (now Thermo Fisher Scientific), and was the only (and first) female. There were approximately 40 craftsmen on site when she joined.

“It was a bit of adjustment for everyone,” she laughs. “It was very much a male environment and it took time to settle in.

“But then that’s the same for every apprentice — you come in knowing nothing really and it takes time to get used to the world of work.” 

Eibhilín believes more people, and women in particular, should consider apprenticeships.

“I had the points for college but I chose to do it this way,” she explains. “I’m learning all the time — and I get paid!” 

Her career has progressed over the past few years and she would like to move into the automation/computer side of the industry.

Eibhilín went back to her school — St Augustine’s in Dungarvan — to speak to students about her career choice.

“A lot of the pupils were very interested in the job I do and said they would consider being an apprentice. There are so many different options out there — college isn’t the only one.”