Shelley Knight is a mother-of-three from Albury who recently made a career shift to plumbing. Photo: Supplied.
Women make up just 1 per cent of the plumbing workforce, but Shelley Knight is joining a small but growing band of women in the male-dominated industry.
The Albury mother-of-three has had a varied work history, having run the Watchbox winery, worked as a nurse and events coordinator, before making a career shift to an apprenticeship at Twenty2 Plumbing, where she works with her husband.
“I was sort of expecting it to be a lot more of being on the shovel and digging,” the first-year apprentice said.
“But because we do that larger stuff [like fitting for commercial buildings], it’s not as much of being on the shovel for the day.
“Sometimes people ask, ‘Well, why would you want to be a plumber? Why wouldn’t you want to be an electrician or something?’
“I think that is from the mindset of blocking and unblocking toilets and that sort of thing … but our company doesn’t do that.”
Mrs Knight said there were more women on-site than she expected.
“We’ve got two females in a team of seven, and it’s definitely surprising the amount of young girls that are getting into it,” she said.
“It’s nice to be able to normalise [women in trades] so that young girls — like my daughter — sort of grow up just going, ‘Oh, that’s normal.’
“Whereas when I was going through school, it was basically never given as an option to do work experience in a trade or even going into plumbing.”
Work involving tools was always on the back of Mrs Knight’s mind. Photo: Supplied.
With all three of her children now in school, the 37-year-old decided it was the right time to start an apprenticeship, something she had always been itching to do. She attends TAFE NSW Albury one day a week to build the necessary skills in the newly renovated plumbing training area.
Her teacher at TAFE NSW Albury, Cameron Burt said he had seen an increase in young girls and women in trades.
“Females seem to have a different mindset and have a bit more attention to detail,” he said.
“There are so many opportunities to make a difference in a rewarding plumbing career, and our skills-based courses allow students to hit the ground running.”
Even though she started her apprenticeship considerably later than many of her classmates, her experience has been “overwhelmingly positive”.
“There’s a lot of transferable skills with being older,” she said.
“Being a younger person and going onto a big commercial site would be a lot more daunting, so it is just making sure that you have support from the people that you are working with.
“If you’re not sure where to start, it is always a great conversation to have with your local TAFE. They deal with apprentices and employers all the time, so they would be able to assist and guide you.”
While Mrs Knight is no stranger to change, she is glad the attitude towards post-school pathways is changing.
“I just hope other women would feel comfortable and encouraged to step into a trade and give it a go,” she said.
“The industry is changing, and it’s nice to be a part of it while it’s changing and to have more females coming through with us in the future as well.
“I guess it’s a little bit more of a shift. Not only with females getting into trade, but also away from the expectation that everyone has to go to university.”
