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As part of the #BuildingEquality 2019 Campaign, Philippa King-Smith Business Development Manager with Ardmac, shares her story as a woman in construction.
My education is in Mechanical Engineering which lead me into a world of designing equipment for the food and pharmaceutical markets. The engineering world, specifically mechanical, through university and my early career, was hugely male dominated, so the skew in figures of the construction industry gave me no cause for concern.
I have enjoyed working on projects from start to finish for manufacturing industry and now gain fulfillment in promoting the excellent service Ardmac offers.
My mother was the owner and MD of a builders merchants. The MD of my first job at the engineering firm I worked at straight after university, was a female also. Both strong role models, in my life and early career, I never saw my gender as a barrier to success. In fact, females leading in successful companies was all I knew in my early career.
Women in industries such as construction and engineering need to be normalised. I am where I am as a result of a Physics teacher, who saw my potential, and encouraged me to go after a job he thought I’d find fulfilling. He sent me on an engineering open day at Salford University. If girls are given the same encouragement to go after jobs they’d find interesting, and not just what will make them fit a mould, change can happen.
To learn more about the #BuildingEquality campaign and to share your own story, please visit our dedicated page here