Great to see the issues for young people in general and girls in particular being so clearly stated.

Hattie Hasan, founder of Stopcocks Women Plumbers, the only national company of self-employed female plumbers (we believe) in the world faced, similar difficulties as Rhys Jones when training as a plumber in the 80's.
Her response was to form her own business. She too saw the leaks in the pipeline, her response was to redesign the system, fixing it in the process.
The outcome (but not the end of the story) is the first plumber training course for women. It includes mentoring, access to the on-site work necessary to qualify, supervision in order to complete it and build confidence and also business building, starting this February.

We are still encountering women whose fathers and brothers are plumbers but they're discouraged from doing it, women who are the only females on their courses and women who have managed to get jobs with stories of what has happened to them that could make your hair curl.
Careers advice appears still to channel girls away from plumbing. Even colleges seem to only be set up to accept the flow of boys straight from schools and not to proactively attract more mature learners.
With the reputation of plumbing among the lowest of any job/trade/profession we believe it needs quality of work plus the soft skills/customer care women bring to drag it into the 21st Century.