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As part of the #BuildingEquality 2018 Campaign, Jillian O’Neill, Teicniuil Priory Consulting Engineering, shares her story as a woman in construction.
From a young age I have always “doodled” houses, slowed down passing building sites & wanted to know how things worked. I knew that I wanted to go into engineering. I love walking past buildings & saying “I built that”. Those buildings will be around a lot longer than I will.
In my all girls school, woodwork was introduced for the first time when I started first year & luckily there was enough demand for us to go on to study Constructions Studies for the Leaving Cert.
This was an experiment to see if there would be enough interest in a girls school for such subjects & I just happen to have been the test subject. Who knows what career I would have chosen if Construction Studies wasn’t available for me.
I spent all of my early career on site. I have always been met with respect & willingness to teach. Unfortunately I am yet to meet another female engineer on site & am awaiting the day!
Later I moved into Consulting Engineering, where the ratio of men to women is greatly improved. In my current position at Teicniuil Priory Consulting Engineering 80% of the professional staff are women.
To learn more about the #BuildingEquality campaign and to share your own story, please visit our dedicated page here