Advancing gender equity in construction; the case of Nigeria’s female professionals

Construction remains one of the most gender-segregated industries and in developing settings these constraints are amplified further. This study examines women’s participation and role distribution in the construction industry, and tests whether perceived barriers, workplace challenges, and preferred interventions differ by location, education, experience, and age. A structured questionnaire was used to administer a quantitative cross-sectional survey to 241 registered female construction professionals, including architects, engineers, builders, land surveyors, and quantity surveyors. However, only 217 valid responses (90.0%) were retained for analysis. Descriptive statistics and group-comparison tests, including multivariate testing, were used to evaluate the data. Findings show that women are concentrated in office-based roles (56%), with fewer in field/site roles (36%) and very limited representation in leadership (7%), indicating constrained progression. The most salient participation barriers relate to gender roles/stereotypes, funding constraints, and limited supportive policies, while key workplace challenges centre on harassment, weak mentoring/network access, and exclusion from decisions. Perceptions of workplace challenges differed significantly by urban–rural location, and participation barriers differed by experience level; intervention preferences were broadly consistent across education groups, with scholarship support showing the clearest age-related difference. Mentorship, skills training, flexible work policies, and awareness initiatives emerged as the most preferred strategies, suggesting that effective reforms should combine capability-building with organisational and cultural change. The study contributes by linking gendered constraints to women’s role adoption using a professional-body sampling frame and by identifying where targeted versus sector-wide interventions are most justified.