Women accounted for just 1.5 per cent of people who completed traditional craft apprenticeships in Ireland last year despite a sharp increase in female participation across the wider apprenticeship system in recent years.Just 59 of the 4,056 people who received craft apprenticeship certificates in 2025 were women, according to figures released by the Department of Further and Higher Education. The figures cover 29 traditional craft disciplines, including plumbing, electrical, motor mechanics and carpentry.Only two of the 561 people qualifying in plumbing were women, while there were no female graduates among the 442 people qualifying in carpentry and joinery. In electrical apprenticeships, 31 of 2,024 graduates were female, while women accounted for 13 of the 259 people receiving motor mechanics certificates.However, the two Ministers responsible for apprenticeships, Minister for Higher Education James Lawless and Minister of State Marian Harkin, both said on Monday that the picture was changing rapidly and that there had been a substantial increase in the number of women entering apprenticeships in recent years. Lawless said the apprenticeship system was becoming more diverse but he also recognised “there [is] more work to do”, particularly in increasing female participation in the traditional craft trades”.The number of women entering craft apprenticeships has increased from 129 in 2021 to 226 in 2025, he said, marking a 75 per cent increase. [ The exponential growth of apprenticeships in IrelandOpens in new window ]Women are more represented in ‘consortia-led’ apprenticeships, a newer type of model that introduced apprenticeships into new sectors such as finance, ICT, education, hospitality and engineering. Female registrations there rose from 726 to 1,032 between 2021 and 2025. In 2025, 420 women completed consortia-led apprenticeships.Lawless and Harkin both said initiatives to encourage female participation were working, including gender-based bursaries worth €2,666 for apprentices whose gender comprises 20 per cent or less of the number in that course. The most popular apprenticeships for women appear to be hairdressing (366), followed by finance (290) and sales (158). However, electrical apprenticeships appear to be bucking the trend with 222 women doing courses in 2025. Harkin said that number has increased again this year and said it could partly be attributed to the influence of 20-year-old Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins, who is currently doing an electrical apprenticeship. While acknowledging that the number of women in some other traditional areas such as construction was low, Harkin said the move to modern methods of construction (MMC) would also change that situation. MMC is a term used to describe a range of off-site manufacturing and on-site techniques that provide alternatives to traditional house building. “There are far more women involved in MMC and more and more of our construction will be MMC,” she said. “Young women are now doing apprenticeships and loving it, and really making a space and a place for themselves.”[ Apprenticeships have changed, but people’s opinions have notOpens in new window ]A Department of Public Expenditure paper published last year found that female participation had grown substantially, but that most of the increase was driven by consortia-led apprenticeships. Of 1,950 female apprentices in the system at that time, 1,596 were in consortia-led programmes, compared with 354 in craft apprenticeships.Former minister for higher education Simon Harris published a five-year apprenticeship strategy in 2021, one of the aims of which was that the apprentice population would reflect the mix in the wider population by 2025. There were 9,461 new apprenticeship registrations in 2025 and more than 30,000 apprentices in the system by the end of July 2026, including almost 2,900 women.