The South African architectural and engineering industry has, overall, been slow to transform, welcome diversity and include women and, as a result, architectural firm SVA International MD Sandi Mbutuma has called for the implementation of set targets to ensure that real transformation takes place.

This is on the back of these industries generally being male dominated, with only about 10% of women having voting rights in a company or being in an entry-level or junior management position.

As an example, Mbutuma points out that there are more than 8 000 registered architectural professionals in South Africa, with women making up only 21% of this figure.

Even though this number has been growing at a “staggering growth rate” in recent years, she laments that it is still insufficient for inclusionary growth to take place.

While this growth is encouraging, Mbutuma notes that “now is the time when tides are turning in the industry and real transformation is taking place”.

Enabling women to work on big contracts, from start to finish, will encourage women to stay in the industry and increase the number of women working in the industry, she adds, noting that, in turn, this will also contribute to growing women’s skills and leadership qualities.

While, to a certain extent, the broad-based black economic empowerment codes and government funding programmes encourage inclusion of women, Mbutuma laments the lack of activities that encourage youth participation and encourage young women to join the industry.

Mbutuma remains optimistic that the future for women looks positive, even though breaking barriers requires strong-willed individuals to “question the status quo”.

She avers that the conversation about accelerating the women's empowerment agenda must “not be an August agenda” – in reference to South Africa’s celebration of Women’s Month in August each year – and instead should be “a continuous national drive”.

Mbutuma suggests that women should consider involving “change agents” when having important discussions of this nature among themselves. 

Putting it into perspective, she explains that a “change agent” is someone who empowers and elevates a person’s level of knowledge and, by so doing, opens up “endless opportunities”.

As an example, a master or seasoned educator can be a change agent for a student on their academic journey.

SVA is a member of the Gibb group of companies and is Gibb’s property delivery unit.