Shelley created Women Builders in 2003 following her own desire to qualify in plastering skills.

The company largely employs a female workforce that provides a construction and maintenance service in the Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and North Oxfordshire areas.

She said: “My aim is to provide skills training for women who want to pursue a career in construction as well as those facing a career change or whose circumstances justify the necessary skills to carry out their own home maintenance tasks. Armed with these skills we can make a real difference to the equality of opportunity for women; a skilled worker is after all a skilled worker, regardless of gender.”

The company’s training school is located at the Bletchley HQ where “Jobs for the Girls”, a programme of six-week training courses in building maintenance, new build, carpentry and plumbing are carried out followed by work placement in local construction companies.

Women Builders is supported by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and SummitSkills, the Sector Skills Council for Construction through which employers have a direct route to influence strategic planning for skills and training.

Shelley, a 42 year old mother of two from Mursley, Buckinghamshire is the current Chair of Women and Manual Trades (WAMT), an organisation promoting women in the trades through education and example, and is Vice Chair of SummitSkills, Careers and Diversity Interest Group. 
 
Shelley’s achievements as a woman entrepreneur and her support of women interested in entering the building trade has led to her appointment as a Women’s Enterprise Advocate by the South East England Development Agency.

She joins a select group of female entrepreneurs who are being recruited to act as role-models for other women and to promote the benefits of being in business.  This group will help raise the profile of women’s enterprise and its importance to the South East economy.