While women remain a minority in our industry the fight for parity goes on

The end of March marks the end of Women’s History Month, with several industry press titles, social media feeds, awards and events drawing focus to the power and impact of women in architecture. As we move beyond that focus, it is important to remember that the fight for parity for women in this industry is ongoing and very current.

Today, there is more female representation, at higher levels, than I can recall there ever being in my 25-plus year career. What more could we want, some might ask?

More. There is always room for more. Until we have access to exactly what anyone else stands to have, regardless of our sex, there will always be more to achieve and more to conquer. At the minimum we need same pay, same conditions, same recognition.

But it is important to take stock and remind ourselves of the wins we have had as a minority group in architecture and the wider construction industry. There are many, but here I will focus on three I consider to be some of the most positive changes in recent years.

Up to 80 per cent of women considered the flexibility offered by hybrid working a means for them to apply for higher level roles

The first is the proliferation and uptake of hybrid and flexible working, which for many reasons helps women to achieve parity in their working lives where they could not before. The second is the significant swell in representation for BAME and female people of colour in the industry, which is not just positive, but mutually reinforcing for all marginalised groups. The third is the growth in female applicants at education stages in architecture, which has been recorded at 7 per cent versus a 4 per cent growth in male applicants.

On International Women’s Day this year, a report by the International Workplace Group (IWG) titled Empowering Women in the Hybrid Workplace showed that up to 80 per cent of women considered the flexibility offered by hybrid working a means for them to apply for higher level roles. The report showed the bearing that flexible work has had on women deciding to apply for new roles, or even to change career altogether.

It also shed light on how much more effective and productive hybrid working has felt for women. This tallies with the empirical feeling on the ground: it seems clear that a more dimensional understanding of the way the working week could and should look does benefit women, who – whether fair or not – are still the primary caregivers in the home and still need different structures to conventional working rituals.

The more intersectional representation that is created throughout the industry, the more strongly disparate groups can fight their corner

Ethnic and racial representation has also seen a significant shift in our industry, which in and of itself strengthens women’s position in achieving greater parity across the board. The more intersectional representation that is created throughout the industry, the more strongly disparate groups can fight their corner, creating an ecosystem of both critique and mutual support.

This has never been more important in shaping the worldview of young students, who are just beginning their foray into the world of architecture. Recent figures have shown that the number of applicants for architecture, building and planning studies at university level has been at its highest level in four years.

If those applicants now feel they are represented by greater diversity in the industry, the chances of them feeling compelled to carve a career out for themselves within it are arguably much more attractive and encouraging.

There is a lot to be positive about, and a lot that goes beyond these three moves forward. But we also still face setbacks.

We are still battling a gender pay gap. The Future Architects Front has boldly demonstrated this, last month showing a scathing slew of figures on Instagram around practice pay discrepancies which it shared on International Women’s Day.

We are still battling higher proportions of stress and lack of wellbeing for women in the workplace and in education. In late 2022, more than half of all female architecture students reported suffering from mental-health or stress-related issues.

And although representation is strengthening, we are still not where we need to be on that front, with BAME-washing having arisen as a problematic side-effect to the changing composition of industry leadership.

There is work still to do, and measuring our progress against the yardstick of the past constitutes some of that work. The rest is about using the resources we have to think up new ways and endeavours to continually highlight women’s worth in the industry.

Women are still – and will forever be – making history in all our varied, vibrant roles

Make no mistake, women are still a minority. Many of our comrades from under-represented groups are finally receiving some of the attention they deserve. But that does not mean that female practitioners specifically can take a step back in their fight for equal rights and recognition.

Women are still – and will forever be – making history in all our varied, vibrant roles. And it’s not just for Women’s History Month, although this has been an important reminder of how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.

Sadie Morgan is a co-founding director of dRMM, chair of the Quality of Life Foundation and a design advocate for the GLA