Electrician Lisa Marie Wood proves there is room for women in a man’s world

Lisa Marie Wood

Lisa Marie Wood is making waves in the traditionally male oriented world of electrical engineering.

Lisa Marie, from Whitworth, is currently in her second year of an electrical apprenticeship.

“It’s going really well. I’m loving it. I start my third year in January,” said Lisa Marie.

Having played football from a young age, Lisa Marie was offered the opportunity to play the sport in America but due to injury, she had to have a change of career.

She said: “I played football at a high level and was offered the chance to go the States to play football, study and train for a career in physiotherapy but before that could be finalised, I sustained a serious injury that put paid to my dreams.

“I had to overcome that disappointment and as part of my attempts to find alternative routes for the future I attended an open day at a local college where I found myself drawn to practical careers and was particularly drawn to the electro technical area and decided to attend college for three years to study.”

Lisa Marie says she was drawn to electrical engineering as she is a “hands on person” who had gained some experience from working with her dad.

“I had done a few bits with my dad and found that I liked it and it was something I enjoyed,” added Lisa Marie.

Lisa Marie then secured an apprenticeship with City Response Limited. She said: “I was about to give up to be honest when I heard from JTL about an apprenticeship opportunity. I decided an apprenticeship was right for me and I’ve never looked back on that decision. For me the chance to earn while I learned made huge sense.”

The skills and commitment that Lisa Marie has shown to the trade have now seen her selected by training company JTL as an Ambassador in the company’s Ambassador Programme, a programme designed to increase the number of girls entering into building services.

Lisa Marie said: “I’m delighted to have been selected to be one of this year’s JTL Ambassadors. I was nominated for the programme by one of my supervisors and then it just went form there really. It’s nice to go out and speak to young girls and show them that they can do this job and show them that we have done it and so can they.”

Lisa Marie believes that it is important for women to enter industries such as electrical engineering and says that she is seeing an increase.

She added: “At the end of the day this is seen as a man’s job, but a women can still do it. Men can do women’s jobs and women can do men’s job and that’s that. I do think it is important for women to enter a trade job because it is something that they can do as well and they shouldn’t be scared of that. Our company has just taken on another female and I think we are starting to see an increase of women entering trade industries.”

Yasmin Damree-Ralph, from JTL, said: “Lisa Marie’s experience is fairly typical of a number of young women who we help through the apprenticeship programme. There are a number of well documented case studies of women setting up their own companies in these traditionally male dominated sectors and making a serious success of their business.

“It’s vital that young women who have a practical bent are given the opportunity to make the decisions that are right for them and that they are not steered into the wrong options because of their gender and what older people accept as the norm. Beauty and hairdressing have their place, but girls are finding that there are worthwhile professions outside those normally touted as ‘right for girls’.

“As with their male counterparts, further education is not always the right option or attractive to young people – the chance to earn while they learn in an apprenticeship is far more attractive to lots of young people than ‘racking up’ a student loan of perhaps £30,000 after gaining a degree they may never actually use in their working lives. Young people are becoming so much more aware these days and give their futures a lot more thought than perhaps those of us who are a bit older did when we were at school.”