A career in construction is one of life's best kept secrets, according to Dr Kate Hayes, Curriculum Leader - Construction / Interim Assistant Principal at Orkney College She shares her journey here:

Although there were lots of builders in my family, because I was a girl I think, it wasn't really something anyone suggested as a career. My dad was a customs officer and my mum was a nurse. But I hated school and I left early. In those days (the 1980s) there were very few jobs around and so I was put on a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) with a civil engineering contractor. £22 a week (which seemed like a fortune!)

I realised that I really enjoyed being outside, I enjoyed the fact that the site often looked completed different at the end of the day from how it had appeared when you arrived and I really enjoyed the craic. There are no stories quite like building site stories!

At the end of training scheme I was kept on as an apprentice surveyor. I went to building college on day release and in the evenings and eventually became a chartered surveyor and a chartered construction manager. 

For a long time I worked in urban regeneration, in London and Manchester. It was really exciting to feel part of changing those cities from (well, in the case of Manchester and the London Docklands) post-industrial wastelands into the modern city-scapes they are today.

Over the years I've had the chance to travel overseas for work - to the USA and New Zealand - and to work in housing, civil engineering, renewables, off-site manufacturing, in charities and housing associations. The industry is so huge and, unlike a lot of other sectors, it's easy to move about so you're never bored. 

I met my husband on a building site. Steve is a joiner and the first time we met we had a big row about money and I sacked him (he said, "I think I need to go somewhere where my skills are properly appreciated" and I said, "well, there's no guard on the gate, love, you're free to leave at any time"). Funnily enough, he stayed!

I think, one of the biggest advantages of being in construction is the opportunity to build your own home or buy a wreck and renovate it. Even today, this is still a realistic aim for most people in construction. One of our lecturers who's in his early 30s and who had been an apprentice at the college, has just finished building his own home in Burray. 

This year at the college we're running a lunchtime programme for our 2^nd year joinery apprentices - "Building your own home". We'll be inviting in Planners, Building Control Officers, Architects and Mortgage advisors to talk through the nitty gritty of doing a self build. And we'll also be talking to (and talking about) local people working in the industry who've built their own house what that process is really like. 

One thing that's kind of baked-in to a construction career is planning for when you're older. Not many people want to be on a building site when they're 65, but construction offers plenty of opportunities to move into other (indoor!) careers. When my daughters were younger I started teaching at Inverness College and this eventually led to me doing a doctorate when I realised it was something I wanted to do longer-term.

At Orkney College we're building progression into the courses so that you can get a trade and then use that trade to move into site management, health and safety, surveying and design, to give yourself a long-term career.

I never would have chosen to come into construction, but it was the best wrong-turning I ever made. I've always had work, I've always been well-paid, I've had lots of opportunities for travel and progression, I've never been bored, it's given me masses of self-confidence, a lovely life, more laughs than I would have got in any other industry and I can't imagine now doing anything else.

A career in construction is one of life's best kept secrets.