To mark National Women in Engineering Day, Inna Laurinaitiene and Laura D'Oca, spoke about the opportunities for females in the profession.
Ms Laurinaitiene, who is originally from Russia, studied in Latvia and Lithuania, then moved to Yorkshire at the heart of the global economic crisis, before finally landing her dream job as a structural engineer for BAM Construction.
"If you like maths and physics, nothing can stop you," she said. "The only problem is a lack of information in schools – if girls can't imagine engineering, how can they go into it?"
Ms Laurinaitiene is currently working on the construction of Withernsea School in Hull.
"I could not get another free place on a course in Latvia so I was advised to move to Lithuania to study, and I took a civil engineering course at the Kaunas University of Technology," Ms Laurinaitiene added.
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"I had to learn Lithuanian at the same time, but fortunately many of the lecturers spoke Russian as well so I got by."
The dedication eventually paid off with a role at a local consultancy and then, earlier this year, the move to become structural engineer at the Leeds office of national firm BAM Construction. She is now working on the Royds Hall Community School in Kirklees and another school in Hull.
Ms D'Oca, who also works for BAM Construction as a structural engineer, moved to Leeds in 1998 and had to do two years of studying English before she could start on a civil engineering course at the University of Leeds.
She took a job as a receptionist at an engineering consultancy in the city and made sure the bosses were aware of her ambition to move up the ladder.
"You have to be proactive to succeed," she said. "Nothing in life will just come to you."
After getting a job at the firm working on bridges, Laura moved into the buildings team, before returning to Italy to work as an assistant project manager for an oil and gas company.
On coming back to the UK a year later, she resumed work in the industry, eventually landing her job at BAM Construction in August 2014. She is currently working on Wolfreton School and Sixth Form College, another school and a University Technical College in Leeds.
Laura does not believe being a woman has held her back.
"It has been the opposite, actually," she said. "People have looked after me and also men talk differently to women than they do to other men – less swearing, less testosterone.
"There is no reason girls can't be engineers. You have to be confident in your own skin, and able to deal with working in a male environment, but there are no barriers because of your gender."
The women cited creativity and problem solving as reasons they enjoyed working in the profession.
bam.co.uk
