‘I was turned down for hundreds of plumbing apprenticeships because I was a woman’

Female plumber fixing a leaking undersink pipe

This is part of a series called ‘The secret life of…’, pulling back the curtain on professions you’ve always wanted to know more about. If you want to anonymously reveal all about your job, email [email protected]

Ever since I was a little girl, I was interested in becoming a plumber. I know that sounds strange, but my dad was a tradesman and I grew up on building sites. I was fascinated by how to get water from one end of the building to the other. I wanted to know how things worked. I was drawn to the mechanics of plumbing.

My parents were supportive. Female plumbers are rare today but when I decided to embark on the career 17 years ago, it was even less common. My dad instilled in me that I can be whatever I want. Some of my friends were hesitant but they later agreed that it was pretty cool.

I left school at 15 years old and went on to do my National Vocational Qualification at college. It lasted two years and I was paid around £10 a week. I was the only girl in the class, with 27 boys. When I arrived on my first day, the receptionist tried to direct me towards the hair and beauty courses.

I started applying for apprenticeships. I must have made a hundred applications – ringing up companies, sending in my CV, going door to door. Lots of people said no. A few told me they couldn’t take me on because they didn’t have the work but then I’d hear that guys on my course were being taken on by the same company. I realised the fact I was a woman was probably why I was rejected. A few of my course mates said it was because if I got pregnant the company would have to pay maternity pay.

It took me six months to secure an apprenticeship. A one-man-band plumbing company took me on. My boss Mike* was great. He was an old-school plumber and he taught me a lot of things that they don’t teach nowadays. He said he gave me a chance because he had a daughter and if she wanted to become a plumber, he’d like her to have the opportunity.

I worked with him for two years, learning how to do bathroom installations and heating systems, piping and fittings. My college curriculum didn’t really teach you maintenance – they just taught you how to set everything up and then it was experience that taught me how to deal with blockages.

When Mike retired, I became a sole trader. It took a while to build up my business but it was nice and steady. Some people preferred to have a female plumber and they sought me out; that was the beauty of it. Some women, men who were elderly, or people who had had bad experiences in the past, felt more comfortable having a female in the house and that really helped keep my business going.

Six years ago, I became a plumber for an insurance provider called HomeServe. I think I was their second female plumber. Now there are eight of us out of around 800 plumbers nationwide. I think there are a multitude of reasons women don’t become plumbers. Girls aren’t steered towards the trade. I didn’t have any female role models in the engineering world. Recently, I went into a sixth form class to talk about my career and one of the students said: “I didn’t know there were females in that trade.”

People of my generation are accepting of women plumbers. I’ve had a couple of the older generation make comments, like: “you’re not in the right place” or “go back into the kitchen”, but my colleagues now tell me they love seeing women in the trade.

When I was a sole trader, my day rate in the Blackburn area was about £150. I paid for public liability insurance which was around £600 a year. Plumbers have to provide their own tools; quality hand tools, including an adjustable spanner, will set you back £400. Now I’m in the £34,000 to £40,000 salary bracket. I’m happy with my compensation and I feel very secure in my job. Even if I lost it, there’s always a market for plumbers.

On an average day, I’ll go to about six jobs. My shift starts at eight and usually ends at 6pm. The work ranges from leaking pipes, dripping taps, clearing internal blockages and fixing faulty heating systems. I’ll work one week of night shifts every nine weeks and about five weekends in a nine-week period.

The best bits of the job are finding a solution to a problem. I love finding out the issue and fixing it; when you figure out a complex problem, you feel like you’ve earned a gold star. I also like talking to the customers. You go into their houses and their lives. You get to hear their stories.

You do get a lot of stressed people. I try to be mindful that what’s an emergency to the customer is often not really an emergency to me. “Oh, water’s pouring through your ceiling? No problem,” I’ll say, because I see it day in and day out and I know what to do and what’s the worst that can happen. But it can be incredibly stressful for the customer, so when they’re snappy, I try not to take offence.

The worst bits of the job can also be the customers. While people used to seek me out as a female plumber when I was a sole trader, now that I work for an insurance provider the customer doesn’t know a woman plumber is coming and some of them have a problem with it. Twice I’ve had to walk off site.

When I turned up at one man’s house, he said: “I told them I wanted a man.”

I said, “OK, do you want me to look at the problem?”

“I’m not happy with this,” he replied.

When I was trying to do the work, he kept coming in and saying that I didn’t know what I was doing because I was a woman and there was no place for us in the industry. That’s when I said, “OK, I’m going to leave now.”

I have had times when I’ve felt unsafe in a customer’s house. Luckily it’s never gone far enough that I’ve had to press the little SOS alarm that my work gives all the plumbers. But I’ve been to some houses, especially during the night, when people have had too much to drink. They’ve been rowdy and I’ve felt that if I said the wrong thing it could tip into a fight.

The work can also take a toll on your body. I’ve had five operations on my back now. I’m not sure what triggered the first problem but my work has definitely contributed. You have to get yourself into very awkward positions, such as crawling underneath a kitchen tap or climbing under floorboards. I’d love to say I’ll be a plumber until retirement but realistically, with my back how it is, I will probably start working as a team leader where I supervise other plumbers.

When I had my last back operation, the doctor started talking about putting a rod in my back. I said, “But what about my work? If I have a rod in my back, I won’t be able to bend.”

I honestly don’t know what else I’d do for work. I don’t have any regrets and I’d encourage other girls to become plumbers.

*Names have been changed.

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