Many believe that our current society allows women to access all jobs and positions, and that it is inconceivable to pay a man more than a woman to do the same job. The reality is far from that; while there is an increasing number of successful women in the construction and property industries, the percentage of women in construction still only sits at 15.4%; the gender pay gap is 23%, and only 2.7% of apprentices are female, so the industry has far to go to achieve gender parity.

Just a couple of months ago on International Women’s Day, my Twitter feed was full of companies publicly posting support, encouragement and thanks to their female staff. I also follow the Gender Pay Gap Bot (which automatically retweets all IWD tweets along with the actual gender pay gap for that company) and the hypocrisy was clear for all to see. When you consider that the first IWD was in 1911, it’s exhausting that we are still seeing the stark disparity that remains. Over 100 years of shining a light, but clearly, there is still more to do.