Two women surveying on the Second Severn Crossing construction site, Severn Beach, Gloucestershire

Behind them is the 'Jay Robertson,' a large jack-up barge working in the River Severn. A jack-up barge can sail into position with its legs raised and then lower them to the seabed to provide a stable working platform. For the Second Severn Crossing it was used to drill pile foundations through the seabed for the bridge support piers and to support a crane to place precast concrete deck units. Laing Civil Engineering and the French company GTM built the Second Severn Crossing between April 1992 and June 1996. The construction and civil engineering industry had traditionally been a male dominated profession. One of the women pictured, J Bowker was an engineering student at the time and went on to work on many of Laing's construction projects. She won Laing's RH Clarke award in 1999 for showing the greatest promise in the field of engineering.

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