Stopcocks Women Plumbers – Empowering women and changing the perception of trades.

2.sc.png — Stopcocks Women Plumbers are the only national company of women plumbers and heating engineers in the world. In 2015 the company launched the Stopcocks franchise as a national support for women to become self-employed plumbers. Since then, they’ve expanded their scope by launching a Register of Tradeswomen during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic: a one-stop shop for householders to find verified tradeswomen across the UK.

“Women are resilient, resourceful, and strong. We need to be at the forefront of this industry and everywhere else too.”
***– Hattie Hasan, Founder of Stopcocks Women Plumbers***

We spoke to Founder Hattie Hasan to find out more about how becoming a plumber saved her life, how getting women into trades is making a positive difference to cases of domestic violence, the importance of visibility within trades, and why her customers find value in contracting tradeswomen.

1. Hattie, could you tell us a little about your background and how you came to found Stopcocks Women Plumbers?

In school I was known as ‘Maintenance’ among my friends, they brought me their broken stuff to fix. School was a refuge to me - our dad was violent to all of us, but our mum was loving and resilient. We all owe our success and happiness to her.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but my love of fixing things, metal and water funnelled me toward plumbing. I went to an evening class and was instantly hooked. I enrolled at the local construction college in 1990. There were so few (zero) female students that the only women’s toilets were for the staff, and it was unbelievably difficult to find steel toe capped boots to fit me!

I needed to have a job four days a week so I could be ‘day released’ into college. I phoned every plumbing company in our local Yellow Pages and not one would take me. They assumed I was calling for my husband or my son and took details. Vacancies melted away as soon as I told them it was for me. By now I didn’t want to give up my plumbing career. I made some flyers, bought a few tools and an answering machine from the second-hand market, and employed and day released myself.

For years I worked very successfully as a self-employed plumber. Customers would tell me how different it was for them to have me working in their homes compared to the ‘run of the mill tradesmen’.

When home computers became more readily available, I started my own website. I began looking for other women plumbers, having still not met another one myself. Instead of finding others, I began to receive emails from women who wanted to be plumbers themselves. Often, they didn’t know how to go about it: the training path isn’t clear unless you start college at 16 and go on to an apprenticeship, most of the women were in their late 20’s or older, often with children or families of their own, and didn’t fulfil the criteria for financial support or assistance while training. I had women reaching out to ask me for apprenticeships and still more, for a job.

I quickly realised there was a big demand from women for a clear path into trades. If I took on an apprentice I’d be unable to help the rest, so I started thinking about other ways I could meet this demand. From my own customers responses, I knew there would be plenty of work for all the women who wanted to come into trades to be able to run their own successful businesses. Despite living in a small town with lots of other plumbers, I knew I was providing something different that my customers found valuable.

After directly helping over 30 women start their own plumbing businesses, my partner Mica and I launched the Stopcocks Franchise in 2015 as a national support system for women to become self-employed plumbers. The publicity generated to do this brought several manufacturers to us who were interested in what we were doing and wanted to help, which helped us run our first national conference for all women plumbers (the Women Installers Together [WIT] event) the same year. Unfortunately, the pandemic has put a stop to large gatherings meeting in rooms.

2. With less than 1% of plumbers in the UK being women, what can be done to change this?

Unless people know a tradeswoman, it’s as if we didn’t exist. So many householders reach out to us for women plumbers after frustrating experiences - that’s when they find our Register of Tradeswomen. We know other independent tradeswomen who have the same story, all with extremely loyal customers.

Women plumbers in jobs, especially those who work for councils, have quite a different story: householders are either surprised and delighted to have a skilled tradeswoman attending, or they don’t believe a woman can do the job, doubtfully following them around, ringing in to head office to check there’s no mistake, asking for the woman’s qualifications, or refusing to allow women to lay hands on their appliances.

Within the trades we get an equally mixed reception; some tradesmen are very supportive, and some spend their weekends trolling us (and sometimes worse).

3. You recently launched a successfully crowdfunded Register of Tradeswomen in the UK. What was the purpose behind setting up the register, and why is it so important to develop this community?

During the first Covid-19 lockdown we quickly started to hear of the rise in domestic abuse (and even murder) of women at home by their partners. Because of my own experiences, and talking to my mum, I knew that having tradesmen come to the house had sometimes provoked violence from our dad, and that it might have been avoided by a tradeswoman coming instead. Additionally, for women who have escaped violence and abuse, inviting strange men into their homes is the last thing most of them want to do.

We had already been speaking to Women’s Aid and a few other organisations who had made it clear that they would be interested in a one-stop-shop for all tradeswomen (not just women plumbers), and with some time on my hands I thought, “if not now, when?”.

We wanted to create a one-stop-shop for householders to safely connect to verified tradeswomen, and at the same time count how many tradeswomen are active in the UK - no one knows the real numbers. Our goal was to establish a clear career route into trades for women, and to create a pot of money that could financially support women while they train or qualify in a trade. We would also be providing verified tradeswomen to vulnerable householders, and assist survivors of abuse in gaining skills within their homes, training in trades, and gaining self-direction and confidence.

4. With your aim of getting 30,000 women in the UK signed up, what is the scope of tradeswomen that you represent in your register?

Since launching on the 1st March 2021 we have plumbers, gas and heating engineers, electricians, multi-traders and handy women, chimney sweeps, joiners, painters and decorators, gardeners and digger ladies. We currently don’t have enough tradeswomen to meet the public demand, and we’re not sure we ever will.

5. We understand that for some women who have sought financial independence or are survivors of domestic violence, having a trade has been life changing. You even coined the phrase: fix yourself by fixing things. Can you talk to us a bit more about this?

After meeting so many tradeswomen, we’ve come to realise that a large proportion of women have come into trades, trained, and turned their lives around after a difficult past or whilst at a crossroads. Many of the women have told us that training and coming into skilled trades has saved their lives or their sanity: fixing and making things with their hands has literally saved them. I believe that’s what it did for me too.

6. According to a poll by WaterSafe, 38% of women in the UK would learn a trade if they had their time over again. What do you think could be holding more women back from pursuing this?

Firstly, there is a severe lack of role models. Tradeswomen need to be seen. ‘If you can’t see it, you can’t be it’ is said often enough, but it’s true.

Women working in the construction industry aren’t visible to the public, even when they’re on the tools. We need more self-employed tradeswomen and maintenance workers going into people’s homes, visible, where their effectiveness is experienced by householders and importantly, their children.

We need genuine flexible working. One woman was recently returning to her job after maternity leave and decided to take advantage of her company’s ‘family friendly policy’. She asked to reduce her hours (40 per week) and was offered 36 hours per week. This is not sufficiently flexible for any parent who wants or needs to be involved with their children, let alone to deal with a school run.

The industry is perceived as, and is, quite hostile. It has one of the worst mental health records of all industries. All the changes that will attract more women into the industry will also attract more men. The industry also needs more people. It is frighteningly short of skilled workers, many of whom will retire in the next five years. We need all of these changes to help us overcome the skills gap that is only worsening.

7. What opportunities are there for the next generation of tradeswomen, and how can we better support this growing population?

We need to widen our perspective of what women can be. Women can do and be whatever they choose, and it might even include working with their hands or building and fixing things. Building, construction, and maintenance are what gives us our cities and civilisations - we won’t get far as a society without clean water and decent sanitation, especially as we seek out more sustainable ways of living.

Anything can be achieved. On my birthday in November 2019, I received a letter telling me I was to be awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours list for what I’d contributed to the Plumbing and Heating Industry. I want to use the MBE to raise the profile of women plumbers and heating engineers even further.