Ewa Ambrosius is operations director at civil and structural engineering consultancy Perega
If the construction industry is serious about sustainability and retrofit, we need to look at who’s sitting at the design table. The innovation required already exists within project teams; the challenge is whether organisational structures empower female engineers to unlock it.
“By giving space for women to own their work, the industry gains a resilient, capable and diverse leadership pipeline”
As International Women’s Day approaches, with the theme ‘give to gain’, we have a timely opportunity to redefine mentorship. In structural engineering, inclusive mentorship is the core strategy to dismantle systemic barriers and accelerate technical innovation.
In the high-pressure environment of live projects, technical expertise is often concentrated at the top. This creates a ‘knowledge silo’ that can leave female engineers and emerging talent on the periphery of decision-making. The give-to-gain philosophy changes this by making technical reasoning transparent. When senior engineers share why certain schemes were rejected or where calculations allow for flexibility, they provide the keys to the kingdom.
For women in engineering, who have historically faced exclusion from informal professional networks, this level of transparency is a catalyst. It provides the technical intel needed to interrogate solutions confidently and bring fresh, diverse perspectives that improve buildability and catch risks long before they reach the site.
The industry must move past ‘passive shadowing’. Watching from the sidelines builds familiarity, but it does not build the independent judgement required to lead. To truly empower women in this field, we must transition from observation to ownership.
Inclusive mentorship is an active exchange of power. It involves collaboratively working through complex calculations and, crucially, inviting junior female engineers to lead design discussions and defend their solutions during gateway reviews. As well as building confidence, this shift builds a track record of leadership.
By giving the space for women to own their work, the industry gains a more resilient, capable and diverse leadership pipeline.
The feedback loop we need
The scale of the retrofit and decarbonisation challenge demands a faster exchange of knowledge than the industry has traditionally enabled. We cannot scale at the necessary pace if technical authority remains a guarded resource.
The give-to-gain mindset creates a two-way street. While senior engineers share their professional intuition, an inclusive culture allows women and emerging talent to bring fresh perspectives on asset adaptation and sustainable design that might otherwise be overlooked in more rigid hierarchies.
This mutual exchange accelerates design maturity and raises the baseline competence of the entire team. It results in fewer late-stage redesigns and greater certainty in decisions made under programme pressure.
For tier one contractors and design leads, this is a leadership imperative. Mentorship is an investment in the industry’s collective intelligence. We must prioritise structured knowledge-sharing as a non-negotiable part of project delivery.
The built environment demands precision, safety and foresight. We build that capacity not by protecting our experience, but by deliberately transferring it. By empowering women to step forward and challenge the status quo today, we gain the delivery capacity the industry needs for tomorrow.
