Sarah Pasco Talks About Women in Construction

What Attracted you to a career in construction? 

To be honest, my dad,  I’ve watched my dad and follow him  all the time I’m a real daddy’s girl,  

and I’ve watched him go from being a bricklayer on site to being a group finance director, and i  

just thought wow what an opportunity to you know the progress of your career that way i just love being with my dad so i just followed him.

How did you get into construction and progress to your current role?

I started off as a management trainee I spent three years going through every single department which gave me an opportunity to look at what i really wanted to do. I did fancy going through the production route but unfortunately that wasn’t open to me and i know that seems really weird now because  my passion is to get more women into production because i think we’ve got such a good opportunity  to give our advice and our eye of how homes should be built but 38 years ago there just wasn’t women on site as site managers or assistants or trainees so i ended up going through the sales route.

How has the construction industry changed since you started?

I think there’s been a massive change just in attitude it’s quite old-fashioned lots of people thought if you were in the building game you didn’t have to have qualifications if you think of everything that we need to do we need architects we need engineers we need planners, surveyors accountants we need lots of different people in our business to actually make it work and look after our customers and it’s vast i can’t even begin to explain how many opportunities there are if you just give it a go.  It’s so exciting! 

How do you think the industry will change over the next 10 years?

I think the changes will come more about what we’re doing and what we’re  

building in terms of ecology environment thinking about the impact of our homes we’re in the middle of an energy crisis at the minute so how do we get  our homes to be more efficient more cost effective for people they already have the less maintenance than traditional homes do but what we’re doing in terms of the animals the welfare do we build bug hotels as well as homes you know there’s so many different areas that we could improve our business in terms of what we’re doing.

Why Should more people consider a career in construction? 

why not it’s great fun 85 percent of everything bought in this country is influenced by women and the reality is homes is that castle it’s that dream it’s that ultimate to have your own home your own front door and we influence all of that in many different ways and we haven’t got enough women really in our business and it’s really exciting it’s fun can you imagine you’re building somebody’s dream their home their castle what protects them where they look after their family where they grow is fantastic

Why do women typically steer Clear of construction? 

I think it’s a really hard industry to understand unless you come and have a look, come and have a try it’s seen as very male orientated all you see really is people think we’re just brick layers and there’s so much more to it we’ve got really good strong female networks now to help people understand how to cope with certain situations which do happen i mean for the last i don’t know 25 years i was the only woman every time i walked into a room and that was quite daunting and there’s more of us now and there’s more of us that are prepared to help coach and understand how you could  really get a strong career in this industry there’s lots of opportunities be brave and come and meet me and let’s have a go.  

What do you look for in new recruits?

So to me it’s not just about the great cv it’s more about the personality in your attitude  

so for example if you’ve done work outside your normal day-to-day so let’s say you run the local  

football team I’ve got one young person that works for the children’s society in their spare time  

it’s about who you are not just about what you can do so how are you going to fit in with the team is your attitude to do the right thing or just do  the minimum where do you go on you know social  

economics what’s your opinion on working with charities or the environment or ecology or politics I’m open to that huge range of diverse people not just about being an engineer or just about being an accountant who are you what can you offer what can we offer you