Meliorating women's representation within leadership positions in the UK construction industry

The construction industry in the North West of England is one of the region's largest industries and fundamental to all other economic activities. However, a scarcity of women in leadership positions in construction has persisted despite their increasing numbers in construction training. The lack of women leaders in construction has been a concern for many years, attracting government and industry wide attention. This issue has been made more prominent recently due to the potential managerial skills shortage facing the industry. Hence, a research project was carried out in order to study the underlying reasons for the scarcity of women in leadership positions in the construction industry, and to discover ways to improve the current position of women leaders in construction, with a particular emphasis on the North West of England.The research project conducted both critical literature review and case studies in order to understand the role of female leaders, the barriers faced by women in leadership positions, the present status of organisational policies and facilities and their suggestions for further improvement in construction and to provide effective practice guidelines. This paper presents the overall findings from this project and the recommendations to improve the current position of women leaders in construction. Although, the recommendations to organisations are mainly focusing on developing women leaders it recognises the importance of gender mainstreaming to facilitate all employees’ career within the organisatio