Jacobs - Bringing People Together And Engineering Change Is All In A Day's Work For Katie

Created by VERCIDA for Jacobs

Jacobs' LGBTQIA+ Staff network Lead, Katie Holmes on pursuing a career in a male-dominated field and how Jacobs' commitment to its LGBTQIA+ employees benefits both community and company alike. 

It probably won't come as a surprise that technical professional services is still a fairly male-dominated field. Things are changing, though. At Jacobs, for example, the company continues to turn the dial on gender balance and have set out the aspirational goal of achieving 40:40:20 (40% male, 40% female and 20% of any gender) across the business. Jacobs is committed to providing an inclusive environment for everyone including LGBTQIA+ employees, and was named the sixth best employer in Stonewall’s UK Employer Benchmark 2022. 

While working at another employer, I found myself so annoyed with the culture that I went out and bought five copies of Caroline Criado Perez's ‘Invisible Women’, her best-selling book about gender bias in everyday life. Then when I came to Jacobs, during one of my very first meetings, a male colleague quoted directly from this book. That struck me as being very refreshing and positive.

The notion that 'you can't be what you can't see' rings true for so many aspects of life, professionally and personally. Being visible and being yourself doesn't just benefit you; it helps people around you who are working out where they want to be in the world.

At #OurJacobs, the emphasis is very much on bringing your whole self to work. As for our LGBTQIA+ network, Prism, which I lead in Europe, we've gone from 250 members a couple of years ago to around 1,200 today. I think the pandemic contributed somewhat to the rapid growth of the online community of Prism. With meetings taking place on via video conferencing, people were already showing their colleagues more of themselves than they would at the office. And all that time apart really emphasised the importance of community, in all of its forms. 

As important as the Prism network is for Jacobs’ LGBTQIA+ community, it also has benefits for a far wider group of people. For example, parents with a child who wants to use gender-neutral pronouns – they love their child and want to support them but they don't have any frame of reference for how to do that. Having the resources to assist in situations like that illustrates how improving support for the LGBTQIA+ community can help society as a whole.   

Please view the video below to learn more about our PRISM network.

My day job involves providing consultancy advice to major clients in the UK. It's very exciting and satisfying to be working on such a strategically important project that can be of such benefit to so many people. 

Away from work, rugby union is one of my great pleasures - both playing and coaching. My love of coaching has its origins in my work with the Girl Guides. I loved Guiding, especially working with girls in their mid-teens who have so many concerns about matters such as body confidence and inclusion. 

Katie is a Principal Consultant within the Strategic Consulting team at Jacobs.

For further information on Jacobs’ culture and to view their current vacancies please click here, or to find out more about their Employee Networks,  please click here.