Last summer, LiveWest launched its 鈥榃omen in Trades鈥 campaign in an effort to provide more opportunities for females to secure a trades career with the largest housing association in the South West.
Liane Sheppard, director of property services for LiveWest, is spearheading the 鈥榃omen in Trades鈥 campaign and has set ambitious targets for a continued rise in the number of females finding a route into trades.
LiveWest has just appointed 10 new apprentices to its trades workforce and five of those are women.
The new wave of apprentices will start in April and will work across a number of trades.
Its previous intake of new apprentices in January saw two women out of a total of five start a new apprenticeship as a multi-trade technician.
The two intakes means that 27.27 % of its trade apprentices are female which is a significant increase on the 7.14% a year ago.
Increasing the number of female role models across the trades
Liane Sheppard said: 鈥淲e all want to see a world free of bias and stereotypes and organisations can play their part in that.
鈥淲e have some great female role models already working across our trades and our recent attempts to increase our female trades workforce has been warmly welcomed.
鈥淚t is obvious that trades are still male-dominated, but there is clearly a change in attitudes in society.
鈥淲e want to capture this shift and use it to promote our opportunities for women to forge a career in trades.
鈥淔or us, it is about empowering more women to pursue a trades career. The message is clear from LiveWest 鈥 you can achieve your career aspirations with us.
鈥淎pprenticeships are not just for young people and because we pay the real Living Wage, we are attracting women considering a career change.
鈥淲e have just appointed a woman in her 40s as an apprentice electrician and she has been a chef most of her working life.
鈥淟iveWest is committed to welcoming female colleagues to our trades and this could be the start of an exciting journey for those interested in launching or changing their careers.鈥
Hear from the apprentices themselves
Orla Gorman is one of LiveWest's new multi-trade apprentices after developing a passion for all things practical.
Bristol-based Orla said: 鈥淟iveWest are doing a great job at welcoming women into trades.
鈥淚 have seen quite a few women out on the job, and it is great to see women are being encouraged to get into trades.
鈥淚t was thought at one time that women can鈥檛 do some jobs, but people are now realising that they can.
鈥淧eople are realising that women are strong and skilled enough to do the same job. It is not just men who can lift heavy objects, saw a piece of wood or fix a radiator.
鈥淚t is nice to see it becoming more normal to have women doing trades jobs and actually some customers might like a woman arriving at their home to do a job.
鈥淢y advice to any female out there thinking of doing something similar is go ahead and do it.鈥
For more information on career opportunities at LiveWest, visit .
