Celebrating International Women’s Day
Today we celebrate International Women’s Day. We are proud to be designing and delivering the fit out for Baillie Gifford to buildings B4 + B5 at the £350m Haymarket Edinburgh development. Our involvement in the project, which is being delivered by Qmile Group & M&G Real Estate, contributes to the fantastic representation of leading women in a range of disciplines working on this landmark project.
International Women’s Day is an opportunity to collectively discuss our experiences as women in the industry and how we forge a path to creating an inclusive environment for everyone’s voice. We marked the occasion last Friday with an early celebration of the talented women working on the Haymarket development in Edinburgh.
It was great to hear from so many women around the table from such a wide range of disciplines; including architects, design managers, developers, project managers, interior designers, contractors, engineers & client occupiers.
Common themes discussed were how we can support each other in our roles, communication and promoting equality at networking events. We continued our discussion on site to celebrate the construction progress made to date.
But discussing the stats on the day highlighted the need for progress that is still to be made. Women make up only 15% of the construction industry. Of these only 16.2 % of people in a director or senior management position are women and just 1% are trade professionals.
We’re delighted to be breaking this trend on such an iconic Edinburgh project, but we appreciate that there is still much to be done to redress the balance; both through inspiring women to enter the construction industry and also by supporting them throughout their career.
We know not all areas of construction are at this balance, and that’s why we think this year’s theme – Embrace Equity – is so important.
Designed by globally renowned architect Foster + Partners and being built by main contractor Sir Robert McAlpine, Haymarket Edinburgh will deliver more than 390,000 sq ft of Grade A office space. All the office space has been pre-let.
The four-acre site will comprise five buildings, three of which will be offices and the other two Edinburgh’s largest hotel with 362-bedrooms and a hotel training academy. The four-star hotel will be operated by Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) under a franchise agreement with Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
We look forward to completing this project together with the fantastic team of women who will ensure its continued success.