Chloe: How long have you worked in the construction industry for?
Ann: So that made me think. So, I have worked basically 40 years within the construction industry. It was probably about 1984 when I moved from engineering originally being employed by British Steel doing Research and Development at one of their R+D facilities up in Yorkshire and then I moved into sales for British Steel back in the early 80’s selling steel like tanks for turrets, so I did a few years selling technically to engineering businesses. I then decided that I wanted to find a job in the Southwest as a result of one of my friends living in Bath at the time and I loved it! So, I went on to secure a job at SIG, so that is when I moved from engineering into the construction industry.
Chloe: What is your job title and what does your role entail?
Ann: My job title is Director and the job that I have been doing for about the last five and a half years is basically overseeing the business unit with full profit and loss responsibilities, so everything from manufacturing to sales, operations, finance, managing director.
Chloe: What did you want to be when you were younger?
Ann: This is going to be the weirdest answer. So, I was very good at Maths, English, Sciences and did all of that up to A-level and then looked at what I wanted to do for University as you do and decided I wanted to be in television and theatre makeup!
Chloe: So what do you enjoy about working in the construction industry?
Ann: The people. I like to meet people. I enjoy having relationships with people who I’ve worked with and who I’ve had professional interaction with, and some of those are very long standing. It’s about the people. It’s very people-oriented business and a lot of things get resolved or work through because of relationships. So, it’s, it’s built around that. I also very much enjoyed commercial roles – prior to doing this business transformation project – the previous sort of 15, 20 years of my life had been involved in procurement and business development. Within SIG I very much enjoyed the ability to put deals together, look at market opportunities, take products and opportunities, and develop them into a commercial offer that differentiated that business away from their competitors. Developing and identifying market opportunities and really exploiting growth before other people got in there. So that gave me a lot of satisfaction.
Chloe: Did you ever think of going into the construction sector?
Ann: No, it was purely driven around where I wanted to live. It was a move of convenience. The people that I met through the interview process were ones who really enjoyed the business, some of the people I met then, I’m in contact with today. And even in the 80s, in the SIG branch there were a number of women involved in managing that business. So, it was balanced at that point, in retrospect, now quite unusual for a construction industry or products business.
Chloe: So were you hesitant about getting into the industry as a woman?
Ann: Not really. No, because I’d always been quite blessed within British Steel. I was the first and youngest (21-year-old) woman to be given an outside sales role in the whole of British Steel. I was supported at that time by a couple of people. One was my manager and his director, who were very supportive of bringing a woman through. So that built my confidence, steel is a very male dominated industry. So, I think without that support, that would not have happened. So when I moved into a similar sort of technical sales role with building products, it really didn’t faze me. Maybe naively at the time, I hadn’t appreciated how male dominated construction was, but I sort of got through that with steel.
Chloe: Are there more women? Do you think about coming into the industry?
Ann: Probably now, but not enough. And I think of the route to improve engagement with that has to start in schools and education where people can see and talk to Individuals who have had experiences, who make it interesting and attractive as an industry. I think digital marketing will help as well to illustrate opportunities in construction. So, I think there’s a lot of influence needed especially at the education stage to open up the construction industry, not just to women, but I think across the whole cohort of genders, to talk about the opportunities that are there because we as an industry don’t do that enough.
Chloe: Do you think the industry has evolved since you joined the industry?
Ann: It has progressed a lot and it is still somewhat behind the market. I think over the last 10 – 15 years the improvement has grown. I have seen more women coming through into more commercial senior roles now, I am seeing that aspect of it improving. However, I am not seeing a huge amount of improvement in women in what I call the contracting side. There are some really important women leading some great construction businesses, but they are few and far between.
Chloe: Have you seen the industry change from a woman’s perspective?
Ann: Yes, to some degree. However, it has to be both parties who make the changes. Women have to present themselves and seek those opportunities and be ready to challenge where behaviors and things are not appropriate. And I think there’s got to be progress within the male environment where they accept that some elements of behavior are just no longer acceptable. It’s going to be a journey. It won’t happen overnight. It will progress. But as I said before, this market is perhaps slower than others to make that.
Chloe: What advice would you give to a woman now getting into the industry?
Ann: I think the same as any industry, be as clear as you can be as sometimes you don’t always know what your career path is going to be. My case in point. But be really clear about what you like doing and what makes you happy in a job and what your priorities are. What would help you create that career path? And if that’s going to be in construction and depending on what education path you took, whether it be engineering or, surveying or something more commercial or finance. Do some research and try to understand what the dynamics are. It remains quite a challenging industry for a woman to grow in. When I last looked at the percentage of women in the industry it was only 14/15% but it might be a little bit higher now. But it’s not, it’s not great. And I think if you want to go into something that’s very site orientated, the facilities and infrastructure of working on a site is not always great for women. So, it’s not particularly helpful. But it is improving, and it has got opportunities. There are opportunities, depending on what you want, what is your path that you want, whether it be marketing, finance, commercial, operations or engineering?