Girls from local schools have been given a hands-on introduction to construction careers at Hartlepool College, with practical challenges designed to show that the industry extends far beyond the stereotype of muddy building sites.
The Girls into Construction event brought Year 9 pupils onto the college campus to meet people already working across the sector. Activities included bridge building, identifying risks on a simulated site and working through budgeting tasks.
Seeing the range before choosing a route
Employers and professional organisations involved included Bowmer & Kirkland, Turner & Townsend, Carney Consultancy and Generation4Change North East, part of the Constructing Excellence network. That meant pupils could ask questions about roles ranging from site-based work to quantity surveying, cost management, design and project planning.
The timing matters because career choices begin narrowing long before somebody submits a university or apprenticeship application. If a young person has never met anyone in an industry, it is difficult to picture themselves working there. Practical careers events can fill some of that gap by replacing a vague job title with an actual person and task.
Niamh Griffiths, a teacher from Eden Academy Trust’s Stranton Primary School, said the value was in broadening what girls see as possible rather than presenting them with a fixed list of careers. She highlighted how different activities appealed to different pupils, with some drawn to practical challenges and others to budgeting and planning.
Different ways into the industry
Industry representatives Jess Morgan, a quantity surveyor at Bowmer & Kirkland, and Becca Watt, a cost manager at Turner & Townsend, spoke to pupils about their own routes into construction. Watt entered through an apprenticeship before progressing to a degree, giving students an example of a route that does not depend on following a traditional full-time university path.
The college’s report also notes encouraging signs that some pupils already understood roles such as quantity surveying. That does not mean the gender gap in construction has disappeared, but it careers information is reaching schools earlier than it once did.
Hartlepool College says the event forms part of its wider work to connect schools, education and employers. The useful test of that work will be what happens later, when pupils start choosing subjects, courses and apprenticeships and can draw on something more than a brochure.
No single careers day can rebalance an industry. It can, however, remove one avoidable barrier: never having been shown that the door exists. For the girls who spent the day building bridges, checking risks and talking to professionals in Hartlepool, construction is now at least a career they have seen from the inside.