News Girls with Hi-Vis 2026: what hands-on teaches that a slideshow can't 12/06/26 What a day on the real gear does that a careers talk can’t Hand a teenager a pair of gloves and a real piece of line gear to work on, and something shifts that no amount of explaining ever quite delivers. On June 9th, more than 20 students from four Canterbury colleges – Hagley, Rolleston, Villa Maria, and Ellesmere – spent the day at our Islington depot for Connexis’ Girls with Hi-Vis, a programme that’s been getting young women onto real infrastructure work for more than a decade. The moment it clicks Yes, there was a slideshow. There’s always a slideshow. We did ours knowing the day would really begin when the slides went off and the gloves went on. The day ran where the work happens. The students moved through hands-on exercises in our lines and street-lighting sheds and the substation workshop, on the same gear our crews use every day. Not a demonstration to watch – the actual job, with the tools in their hands. As they worked, the conversations opened up. The helicopter missions to reach remote lines. Connecting new solar and wind to the grid. The decarbonisation build that’s reshaping the whole sector. You could watch a few of them quietly realise how big this work is – and start to see a place for themselves in it. Why it matters It’s hard to picture yourself in a job you’ve never seen. Women make up about 11% of New Zealand’s infrastructure workforce, and fewer than one in ten technical roles in the electricity supply industry. At the same time, the country is facing a generation of building work and an ageing workforce – the people who keep the lights on need more people coming through behind them. Closing that gap means reaching young people who never thought this industry was for them. And the evidence is clear that hands-on exposure shifts career interest in a way a careers talk can’t. That’s the thinking behind days like this. It sits alongside our work sponsoring Girls with Hi-Vis and backing GirlBoss NZ. “You can talk to a teenager about a career in the trades all day. But it clicks the moment they’ve got the gloves on and have actually done it.” – Peter Wilson, Technical Capability Manager A big ngā mihi to Connexis for letting us host, and for running Girls with Hi-Vis for more than a decade – getting hundreds of young women onto real infrastructure work each year, with host companies the length of the country. It’s a movement worth being part of, and we’re proud to be one of the doors that opens. See yourself in this work? We’re always after good people – from apprentices learning the trade to engineers designing the network. Take a look at where you could fit. Connetics Careers
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