Would you advise your DD to go into the trades?

🤣🤣🤣 whoops! Bit of both? 🤣

I spent most of my career in construction and most of the other time, in trying to encourage women into construction/running programmes to facilitate this.

From my experience, women are still seen as being there with the 'permission' of men, and have to work twice as hard to 'prove' themselves, have to work alongside the continual sexist and often disturbing attitudes of people who should have your back, and in the end, often just give up and go work in offices.

And that's before the long hours to get jobs done especially in the summer, and the potential to have to move around or work away for long periods on jobs around the country.

However it can be exceptionally rewarding, particularly seeing projects that you worked being used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.

I'd recommend that she take advantage of an apprenticeship in a medium to large company, learn as many aspects of a trade that she enjoys, and then aim to set up on her own or with a partner, mainly for safety reasons, and then work for herself. Plumbing and P&D are often good trades to go into as the materials are not quite as heavy as other trades.

It’s a great idea, I suppose ultimately it depends on her personality and what the trade is as some of them involve lots of quite physical and dirty work and it won’t be for everyone which I say as someone who does a traditionally masculine job

I know of a female tiler but she has always been quite blokeish in her demeanour, is capable of lugging heavy equipment about on her own and more than gives as good as she gets if anyone feels the need to comment. Lots of women would prefer to hire women if there was an option.

I potentially would, but would advise that if you do that work on big construction crews there is still a lot of misogyny. I know a pretty tough woman who was an electrician for a while and even she found the sexism pretty tough on site.

Is this your WFH job, or your what the f* job? Made me chuckle

I'm nearly 46 and have had a great career in IT as a developer, but if I had my time again, I'd like to be a tiler: it's a highly skilled trade (I once heard it described as 'somewhere between an art and a science') and as it's one of the less taken-up roles, tilers are in high demand and very well-paid (certainly where I live!).

There's also been a bit of a boom in demand recently for tilers with artisan skills on specialist jobs on period properties and so on.

A friend trained as a plumber and loved it but found it too physically demanding (she's very slight). She then retrained in something associated but without lifting and has had a lot of success.

Yes. Just aim for domestic level, ideally self employed or with a decent company's, not working on building sites.....
Friend has recently qualified as a chimney sweep in a total career change from working in hospitality, it has one of the shortest training programs (a weekend rather than years or college/apprenticeships to be a plumber or electrician) and is going really well. As she is self employed she is able to do it on days off/weekends to build the client base while still keeping her regular job.
I was a bit concerned about the vulnerability aspect of advertising as a female sweep, but I dont think she has had any problems, although also she usually has her wife as an assistant so not alone.
As a woman living alone female trades would be a hiring point, strangers are had enough, but having the stereotypical rough as F tradesman attitude with it is really uncomfortable.
And my brother is a trade in a different field, so I'm aware they aren't ALL dicks! But my brothers company has 1 woman who's not in the office, and they do make a point of hiring and training their staff to be housebroken as they work directly in people's homes all day. Eg clean, tidy, respectful.
But that is far from the norm IME!

Yes and no- trades can earn a lot of money, but:
They do need a lot of physical strength, and a petite woman may struggle in lots of trades
They need a thick skin- building sites are known for misogyny
Building companies probably - not definitely, I haven't looked into it- don't have good woman/ family friendly policies, i.e. maternity, family leave, because of the lack of women there
Safety- can something be done to mitigate the safety aspect of going into houses alone, where a woman may be at risk of being attacked?
Job life span- the biggest barrier to being in a trade is physical health. A lot of builders, plumbers, electricians have severe back problems, and/ or need knee replacements by a young age. My builder FIL has lung damage and is about 70% deaf through working on building sites, and his hand has been severely damaged multiple times through power tools, my gas engineer partner will probably need a knee replacement by 55.

I would personally either push for a trade such as a painter/ decorator, or maybe a plasterer, rather than someone working with power tools, and promote yourself as working for women, OR I would push for her to do project management style qualifications, and aim to be leading the building site, not on it.

I wouldn’t encourage it over everything else but I would talk to her about it if that’s the sort of aptitude she showed.

Let’s not forget that she doesn’t have to work on a massive building site, she can do training with smaller businesses.

I work in construction and would encourage more women into it, there are hundreds of jobs in the industry that aren’t a trade. But the more women in other roles, the ‘better’ the industry becomes.

I do think too that things are improving, they definitely aren’t where they need to be but there are pockets of great companies and men that work in a trade that call out the shit behaviour (my DH included).

I would be picky on the trade though, electrician would be a good one, groundworker maybe not. You do have to consider how physical the job is, the reality is if you are 5ft 2 and weigh 8 stone, you’re unlikely to be strong enough to be a chippy or a scaffolder.

I don't object in principle and I toyed with the idea myself many times. However, it's a complete myth that the job is flexible. It absolutely isn't. If you work for someone else, you are restricted by contracted hours. If you work for yourself, you can't just take a day off as you lose money and there is no safety net. My ex partner is a self-employed builder and he often works 6-7 days a week.
Incidentally, we did discuss whether he would employ a woman and he said only if she could perform on par with men. So see the previous posters comment about someone being let go because of lack of physical strength.

It's only a half-informed opinion but DH is in a trade. He isn't suited to an office role so it was a good route for him. I agree with the sentiment that it can be a great career and is not to be sniffed at.

Working for a company means not a great salary but home on time every day. Joining the on call rota really ups the salary but is completely inflexible and only works with having a family because I have a 'normal' job.

He has friends who have their own businesses. I imagine that's where the real money is but I doubt it's that flexible.

I don't think he works with any women other than the ones in the office.

I am pro women in trades, DH is in a trade at a more senior level now. He's come across 2 maybe 3 women in a trade and he has noticed a lot of sexist comments and sexual comments towards them - everyone is trying to get "their leg over" because she is the only women on site 🙄 . He also had a women who couldn't do her job because of the physical strength needed to lift a door with one hand whilst working on it- she got laid off because there wasn't enough work for her.

It's a tough job but does pay more than a lot of "female led" sectors. It would depend on your daughter would she be confident in a male dominated environment and be able to assert herself.

Also although there are some flexibility in his working- being part time in a trade often doesn't work, there is normally tight deadlines and people want the jobs done faster.

But I would love to see a world with more women in trades and it's going to take some determined women to make that change.

I would definitely mention it as an option just as much as university etc. Her dad is a good example for her that it's a great job with good pay. I know someone who was a painter and decorator in a Muslim country and she was very busy because she could go in when it was just the wife home so they aren't with other men alone so it works in an advantage for things like that and maybe people who aren't comfortable with men etc.

Yes definitely

If I had a daughter and she was interested in this as an alternative to Uni, then I definitely would encourage her to investigate it.

A reliable and reputable tradesperson is worth their weight in gold and will always be busy.

Yes. I would encourage anyone to go in to a trade. I employ a female electrician when needed and am much happier having her in the house rather than an unknown male. She's incredibly busy.

Tradies always seem to be in huge demand and that's not going to stop is it.

I would consider a different path. With engineering and IT now being accessible via BTEC, T LEVELs and apprenticeships in corporates rather than university I would rather go down that path. I have had a whole career in IT, great money, flexibility and women are now more than 25%. Don’t get me wrong I see women coming off the big commercial build sites in London but they are very few.

my plumber is a woman. She’s brilliant and my impression is that she’s always incredibly busy

If its something she is interested in then she should go for it.

I don't know why it's so male dominated.

Not so much the trades but I wouldn't encourage my DS that route either but definitely things like engineering, science, cyber security. I've been looking at apprenticeships for my DC recently and there's lots of opportunities to earn a degree whilst working.

The job should be about what they enjoy/thrive at.

I also find my WTF IT job much more flexible than my self employed tradie DH's. He does some pick ups but I work my pick ups around his days. His time is dictated by customers availability, needing to be available for deliveries at site, needing to be on site for other trades.