SPAB Magazine Spring 2025

The Spring 2025 issue of the SPAB Magazine, highlighting women in conservation (‘Forging brilliant careers’), is introduced by trustee Jo Thwaites, chair of SPAB’s education and training committee. She draws attention to the fact that while most of the UK construction industry pays some attention to the gender gap, and that excellent equality diversity inclusion strategies reach a wide audience, the proportions have not increased much over the last 20 years, with only 15 per cent of surveyors being women, compared to 11 per cent in 2000. Barely two per cent of the construction workforce on site are women. Fortunately, the gender gap appears to be much lower in professional heritage management. The current issue of the magazine highlights women in conservation and those who are already forging brilliant careers in the sector, highlighting role models past and present, but illustrating the old maximum ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’.

Thwaites notes that conservation and heritage work has attracted more women than the rest of the industry, but it is hard to find the data and research as to why. She asks why the building construction industry, which contributes five per cent of the entire UK economy, cannot be more like its own heritage sector and try to include women as an equal part of the workforce? The overall number of women working in the sector is low compared to men even though there are skills shortages and currently 36,000 job vacancies, the highest in 20 years. She thinks that some of this is regrettably down to outright sexism but also often to a lack of the opportunities in construction offered to young women and girls, and to a simple lack of vision. Readers might like to refer back to this reviewer’s recent column regarding the Heritage Crafts Red List (‘Periodically’, Context 182, December 2024).