The construction industry is traditionally considered a white, maledominated
industry. The UK construction industry is at its busiest for a
decade and is suffering from skill shortages in both craft and manual
trades, and at the professional level. The issue regarding the lack of
women in construction has become more prominent recently, attracting
government and industry-wide attention due to this potential skill
shortage facing the industry. To meet these targets the industry cannot
rely on recruiting the traditional male- dominated workforce. Therefore
the UK government is examining ways to encourage women into
traditionally male-dominated jobs. Since then a number of initiatives
have been introduced promoting construction careers to women;
however they have yet to achieve the desired effect. The main aim of
this paper is to investigate how the construction industry can
successfully recruit and retain professional women by looking at what
lessons can be learnt from other sectors such as medicine. Hence this
paper looks into other sectors, in particular the medical sector and how it
has become an accessible career for women. It also focuses on the
culture of other sectors to establish the influence this has over the
employment of female professionals
