BAM UK & Ireland Women’s Network Visits CTLR

The Cross Tay Link Road project welcomed the BAM UK & Ireland Women’s Network for Scotland to the site on Thursday 2nd November, where they enjoyed a full agenda including presentations and discussion, and a site tour and progress report.

The Women’s Network was launched in April 2022 by the Scotland civils team of BAMUK&I, and has the ongoing support of regional director Dougie Grant. It was recognised that many women in the company work in silos, particularly with the introduction of hybrid working post-Covid, and that this offered little opportunity for discussions around the issues that are important to women. The Network aims to bring women together on a regular basis.

Isla Hill, BAM’s Regional Bid Manager for Scotland, commented, “We want to be a company that attracts and nurtures all talent, and to be recognised a destination employer. By ensuring that we place the female agenda front and centre, we are endeavouring to level the playing field for women.

“We are now 25% female in BAMUK&I; while this is a vast improvement on statistics from a decade ago and better than the construction industry at large*, we would like to see that figure grow.”

Hannah Grainger, (Section Engineer) commented, “As a female engineer you used to walk onto a site and people stared because it just wasn’t the norm; now, it’s not as big a deal. Plenty of women are building careers in the technical roles and we are represented as engineers, Quantity Surveyors, and planners.”

The Women’s Networking Day at CTLR attracted women from across Scotland with delegates travelling from Inverness, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee. The event covered:

• Visibility of Future Workloads
• Professional Development
• Women’s Wellbeing and Mental Health
• The Gender Gap

In addition to discussions and workshops, the delegates enjoyed a site visit with progress update.

Hannah continued, “This was the second time we visited the Cross Tay Link Road Project and those of us who attended both could see a huge difference. Having the opportunity to see such a large-scale infrastructure project up close is fantastic and helps bring our work to life – particularly for those women who tend to be more office based.”

Jillian Ferguson, PKC, commented, “As a female engineer, and the lead contact for PKC on the Cross Tay Link Road Project, I am delighted to have welcomed back the Women’s Network to our site. It is so important that we all play our part in encouraging young women into the industry, and in ensuring that we nurture and develop those building careers.”

* In total, 13 per cent of the construction industry in the UK is made up of women, according to Office for National Statistics figures.