Julie White, the managing director of D-Drill & Sawing
Julie White is a trailblazer in the construction industry as the managing director of D-Drill & Sawing, a specialist diamond drilling, concrete sawing and controlled demolition company which has offices across the UK.
As International Women’s Day 2025 approaches on Saturday, March 8, Julie chats to PLMR Advent Account Director Michelle Wilson about why she is so passionate about encouraging more women to consider construction as a career.
International Women’s Day remains an important date in the calendar because it is an ideal opportunity to highlight the amazing achievements of women and encourage younger women to follow their dreams.
I have been in the construction industry since I was 17 and at that time it was very, very unusual to see a woman on-site.
I remember I went to see a client with two of my managers who were men, and the site agent turned up late and asked who was going to take the minutes. Everyone looked at me and I said, ‘I can do that’ and at the end of the meeting, he asked could the MD sign the contract. I said, ‘I can do that as well’. He was so shocked and embarrassed, but the construction industry has changed massively since then. There’s no whistling anymore when women are on-site.
It has changed a great deal partly because many of the main contractors and CEOs are women who are in the top jobs at these massive companies having been appointed to these positions on merit, not to fill a quota to meet an equal opportunities policy.
Look at me, I’m running a very specialist business which isn’t glamorous in any way and I’m bringing my knowledge of the sector into my company every day.
The pay gap in construction has nearly been solved and I think that’s because I truly believe it is the right person for the right job and if not, irrespective of gender, you wouldn’t last a minute.
There are now women labourers using heavy manual machinery on-site and no-one bats an eyelid and at D-Drill, our operations manager is a woman and we have recently appointed a young woman, Iris Lin, as our first quantity surveyor.
Accelerate action is a positive theme for this year’s International Women’s Day and, as an industry, I think construction has broken the glass ceiling with the tremendous women occupying the posts of CEOs.
Having these kinds of role models is really important for young women considering a career in the sector because we need to encourage women who really want to succeed in the construction industry and those of us already involved in a wide-ranging industry have a really important role to play in passing on our knowledge and encouragement.
