Is Construction's Digital Revolution Leaving Women Behind — Again?

Let's start with a number that should make the industry uncomfortable.

In 2025, women represented just 19% of ICT specialists across the EU. Now consider that construction — already one of the least gender-diverse sectors in Europe — is in the middle of its biggest technological transformation in decades. BIM, AI-driven project management, drone surveying, smart sensors, digital twins. The question is not whether the industry is going digital. It already is. The question is who gets to be part of it. 

As of early 2026, the construction industry is no longer debating whether it should attract more women — it is confronting whether it can afford not to. Across mature economies, retirements are accelerating faster than replacement. In emerging markets, infrastructure demand is rising faster than workforce formalisation. In both cases, excluding half the available labour pool is no longer a cultural problem. It is an operational one.

And yet the numbers on the ground are still stark. Women make up around 15% of the UK construction workforce, but only about 1–2% of on-site trade roles are held by women. Women occupy just 9.2% of the highest-paid roles in construction, while 29% are in the lowest-paid quartile.

In France, women represent nearly half of administrative and technical employees but less than 2% of on-site manual workers. The pattern is consistent across Europe: women are present at the edges of the sector — in administrative roles, in some technical positions — but absent from the core, and increasingly absent from the digital core that is now defining the industry's future.

Here is what makes this moment different, though. According to the director general of the European Construction Industry Federation, the green and digital transitions represent an opportunity to attract more young people and women to the sector. A transition, by definition, disrupts existing hierarchies. Old gatekeepers lose some of their power. New skills become valuable. New entry points open up.

The opportunity is real. Whether the industry takes it is another question entirely.

The European Commission is pushing hard on this front — with initiatives like Girls go STEM targeting one million girls into STEM studies and professions by 2028, and a new STEM Futures initiative in 2026 focused on identifying and sharing successful education practices with a focus on girls and women. EU businesses used AI technologies at a rate of 20% in 2025, up from 13% in 2024 — and digital transformation is now a priority across industries, not just tech. Construction is no exception.

So what does this mean in practice? It means that the VET programmes training the next generation of construction workers need to look different. It means digital skills curricula cannot be designed in rooms where women are outnumbered ten to one. It means that showcasing initiatives that support women's visibility in emerging areas such as data centres and digital skills — and linking that visibility to the wider skills challenge — is not a side conversation. It is the main one. 

The tools exist. The funding frameworks exist. The evidence that diversity drives innovation has been settled for years.

What is still being built — slowly, imperfectly, but unmistakably — is the will to use all of them together.