The Women Installers Together 2019 was the best yet. On July 4th 2019 the biggest group of women plumbers ever in UK met at the Building Centre.
Not only is this the only event aimed at women in trades (plumbing and heating in this case), thanks to the generosity of our great sponsors, it’s completely free for installers and women at any stage of their training! Focussing on the future, the 2020 vision conference (see what we did there?) aims to bring even more female plumbers, gas engineers and trainees together to eat, talk & listen to each other, learn and meet some of the great companies supporting us.
In the round table discussions all the women plumbers at the 2019 event told us their stories, their concerns and their hopes for the future. This is now the basis of the vision for 2020 and the blueprint for how we intend to address those hopes and concerns, and influence the plumbing industry.
The industry is in a sorry state with the average age of plumbers 57 and already there are not enough of us to meet customer demand. This is going to get much worse. An even more worrying statistic is that only 5.9% of plumbers are under age 39 and only 11% of the general population would even consider going into skilled trades. Something needs to be done to make our industry more attractive, at the moment even those interested in joining it aren’t encouraged by schools careers advisors unless they have family in the industry or what’s seen as ‘no other choice’. This is hardly aspirational.
But there is hope for the industry; 23% of women looking back wish they’d had the opportunity to consider trades careers. Here is an untapped resource to revitalise the plumbing industry, if all the women who wanted to, made it into plumbing that could raise plumber numbers by a hefty quarter!
The Women Installers Together 2019 Conference, among other things, discussed making the industry more welcoming for women and men and going forward that’s something we all want and need.
Watch this space for more on what we’re doing to increase the numbers of women joining the plumbing and heating industries and for information as it’s released about the next fabulous, free event in 2020 go here.
