Gender disparity

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) is the industry training board for the sector, operating across England, Scotland and Wales. The goal of the board is to attract new talent and encourage skills development within the industry. This, it says, will help Britain gain a skilled, competent and inclusive construction workforce, with the aim of developing a future-ready sector that can meet ongoing demands.

The industry is significantly male-dominated, with this impacting the resources available to women who do work on-site. According to the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), women make up approximately 15% of the UK construction industry, with only 2% working on site.

Due to this, CIOB explains that this leads to women’s voices being left out of the conversations and PPE being designed with men in mind, resulting in a lack of available female-sized PPE. 

However, this may be changing, as the CITB has found that more women are entering the construction industry, with higher numbers of women pursuing construction training. Utilising data from the Department for Education, CITB has found an increase in women starting construction apprenticeships, from 1,450 in 2018 to 2,410 in 2025. Moreover, the research found that in this period, the number of women completing a construction apprenticeship increased from 340 to 910. 

“It’s really encouraging to see the continued increase of women starting and completing construction apprenticeships,” explains Deb Madden, Executive Director, Customer Engagement and Operations at CITB.

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