It’s International Women’s Day soon (March 8th) and FemaleFirst have decided to celebrate women who are actively selecting careers and life paths which widen and enlighten the role of females today, breaking barriers and stereotypes.

A number of women in engineering have recently swapped their heels for hardhats! These women climb up poles and go down manholes, servicing and maintaining the UK’s broadband network cables. They are strong women who, in effect, help to ‘run the country’.

There are so many women out there who do amazing work in so many capacities but we tend to forget the fantastic women behind the scenes, the unsung heroes, who do crucial and sometimes unglamorous jobs.

Some ladies have chosen telecoms engineering, and elected to do vocational training instead of academic. They don’t feel they have to stick to the expected ‘normal’ jobs. They are comfortable doing hands-on work, getting their hands dirty and making a real difference in an otherwise male-dominated industry; but they never forget the importance of looking great, and remaining girlie-girls who take care of themselves.

Two such cases are Pamela Donald and Suzi Scott Rix - read on to find out more about their interesting career paths!

Pamela

At just 21, Pamela is already in the middle of an apprenticeship to qualify as an Engineer at BT. Pamela had just returned home from a period of travel, with no idea what to do with her life when she stumbled upon the apprenticeship. A career as an Engineer had never been on the cards, in fact, she had never even considered it before. Pamela was contemplating a place at University, however, the apprenticeship offered so much more variety and opportunity for hands on training, and instead of being stuck in an office or classroom, Pamela is out and about learning her trade. On a typical day she might be installing or finding faults on the customers’ phone lines. It is a challenge but every day is so different.

The industry itself is still largely male-dominated, but this doesn’t bother her at all, in fact, she hopes her story will inspire other young women to go for it, if they feel it is something they would enjoy. Her friends have been surprised by her career choice but very supportive. Pamela is now well on her way to becoming a fully qualified Engineer at Openreach.

Suzi

She is 40 and is a field engineer for Openreach, the UK’s provider of network access for broadband, etc. She goes round fixing cable faults, servicing and maintaining the local networks, while driving a white van, wearing a high visibility jacket and a hardhat. She literally climbs up poles and down manholes for her career. In fact, just today, she was at a sewage plant! She is in a male-dominated industry and feels proud to be a woman showing she can work equally as well as her colleagues.

She studied maths, physics and chemistry at school and always wanted to go into engineering after, but her family felt it wasn’t the right choice for a young girl and was steered away. Later in life, she followed her instincts and returned to engineering - she loves her job. She encourages more women to try their hand at a great outdoor job, where meeting people and having an exciting, varied day is reason enough.

Interestingly, she found love at work. Her mentor who trained her to become an engineer in the field, soon became her close friend. He proposed to her and they were married three years later!