Two more built environment groups join landmark gender equity pact
Posted on: 14 July, 2026
By Linda Serck
The movement to improve gender equity across the built environment gathered further momentum last week as two more organisations signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), strengthening a collective commitment to tackling inequality across the sector.
The latest signatories were ‘Construction for Women’ and ‘Women in Safety’, which joined almost 40 organisations that have pledged to work together through the Built Environment Gender Collective, an initiative coordinated by Building People CIC and Women in Planning. The was first launched at UKREiiF in May and is designed to bring together organisations that have traditionally worked independently to improve opportunities for women and girls across the industry.
The agreement, celebrated at a drinks reception at law firm Dentons in London on Wednesday 8 July 2026, is intended to create a stronger, more coordinated voice for change while allowing each organisation to retain its own identity and areas of focus.
‘A real diversity disaster’
Opening the event, Rebecca Lovelace from Building People highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the built environment.
“We haven’t got enough people and we have a real diversity disaster across the sector,” she said. “There are so many organisations and initiatives working to try and change that. The idea is that we are stronger together. We can achieve so much more together rather than working separately.”
The challenge is particularly pressing given forecasts that the construction industry faces a shortfall of 251,500 workers by 2028, according to a Building People slide presentation. Meanwhile, skilled trades continue to record a gender pay gap of 13.9% – the highest of any occupational group – underlining the industry’s struggle to attract and retain more women.
Rebecca explained that Building People’s research identified more than 90 organisations supporting women across the built environment, with 50 contributing to the research and 20 taking part in workshops that helped shape the collective.
The research found unanimous support for greater collaboration, with every participating organisation expressing a desire to work more closely together.
“One key thing that really stood out for us was that 100% said, ‘Yes, we want to collaborate,'” Rebecca said.
Limited resources
The findings also revealed the extent to which many gender-focused initiatives are operating with limited resources. Nearly six in 10 (58%) are run primarily or entirely by volunteers, 44% have no paid staff and 58% describe their budgets as limited or non-existent. More than half (56%) have no formal way of measuring impact, despite the scale of the challenges they are trying to address.
Despite those constraints, support for collaboration was overwhelming. The research found that 94% of participating organisations actively include or welcome men in their gender equity work, reflecting a shared view that progress requires engagement across the sector.
The research also estimated that almost £743,000 each year is lost through fragmented working across organisations with similar aims, reinforcing the case for greater coordination.
Another important finding, Rebecca said, was the need to view the built environment itself through a gender lens. “Where do you see the voices of women and girls speaking in the built environment? It’s hugely absent,” she said.
Jobs lost due to pregnancy
A powerful personal perspective came from Aceil Haddad, founder and director of Matt PR and former head of communications at the gender equality campaign Pregnant Then Screwed, who spoke candidly about the barriers she had experienced throughout her career.
Despite holding both undergraduate and master’s degrees in planning, she described repeatedly struggling to secure interviews for planning roles before moving into communications. She also spoke about experiencing pregnancy discrimination after being dismissed while expecting her first child.
She highlighted the continuing impact of discrimination in the workplace, noting that thousands of women continue to lose their jobs because of pregnancy or maternity each year, while women, particularly women of colour, continue to report disproportionately high levels of discrimination and exclusion at work.
Her comments reflected wider concerns about retention across the sector. Research presented by the Gender Collective highlighted persistent attrition, with women leaving the built environment significantly earlier than men, demonstrating that recruitment alone will not solve the industry’s gender imbalance.
“The battles are very harsh,” Aceil said. “It’s only going to get harder. So working together is becoming more important. It’s all about stronger outcomes.”
Coming together a ‘game changer’
The benefits of collective action were echoed by Sybil Taunton, Head of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at RICS, who described the success of the B.E Inclusive initiative between professional bodies.
“The coming together has been a game changer,” she said. B.E Inclusive has grown from six professional bodies in 2022 to nine organisations representing more than 400,000 built environment professionals worldwide.
Sybil said the partnership demonstrated how shared expertise, funding and leadership can accelerate progress much more effectively than organisations working in isolation, enabling members to move faster and more consistently on common challenges.
“Seeing all these networks come together under one Memorandum of Understanding was the easiest ‘yes’ I’ve had in the four years I’ve been in this role,” she said. “What matters is your resource, your time and your commitment from the leadership that we’re going to do this together.”
She also outlined new work exploring how professional bodies can better support people returning after career breaks, whether for parenting, caring responsibilities or health reasons, with an industry-wide survey planned to help identify where additional support is needed.
Four headline commitments
The event concluded with Marsha Ramroop, author of Building Inclusion: A Practical Guide to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Architecture and the Built Environment, outlining the collective’s four headline commitments:
- Attracting women and girls into the built environment.
- Supporting career progression and retention.
- Promoting gender-responsive approaches to design.
- Creating a stronger collective voice on policy and industry issues.
Marsha said collaboration would be essential to turning those commitments into meaningful action.
She referenced a poem by Rupi Kaur, which explores how people can be encouraged to compete with one another rather than unite against the wider challenges they face. One line asks: “How can we compete with each other when the real monster is too big to take down alone.”
Marsha said the message captured the purpose of the collective and the MoU: organisations working together rather than tackling shared challenges in isolation.
“We are no longer alone,” she said. “When we work together, we create real, meaningful movement towards real, meaningful change.”
To find out more, you can email: hello@buildingpeople.org.uk
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