A single mum has spoken of her difficulty finding employment as a female plumber - calling out what she feels is gender discrimination.

Ashleigh Carpenter, from Ramsgate, says she is thinking of retraining in another profession after struggling to find work she can fit around childcare.

She says prospective employers "disregard you straight away" upon realising she is a woman with a young child.

Ashleigh, 29, returned to college when her son was just six-months-old, to train as a plumber.

"I just thought you're always going to need water - plumbing's a trade that will always have work," she said.

But that has not been her experience since qualifying in 2018.

With a distinction under her belt, she is keen to find work with a plumber or larger business, to bolster her confidence and experience.

But she has struggled to find a firm willing to let her fit hours around childcare.

After leaving college, she landed a trial at a plumbing business in Hastings, but had to quit as she was unable to make the early starts.

"They wanted me to be on-site at 8am, and as a single parent I needed to get my child to nursery," she explained. "I just couldn't do it."

Her experience has been similar since moving to Ramsgate a year ago with her son, who is now seven.

"No-one's prepared to take you on," she said. "I've got a child and I can't usually be there at 7am or 8am.

"If work came up, there's a breakfast club I can get my son into, but the after-school club is usually full.

"The other day someone said they could have given me a couple of days work. I managed to get breakfast club sorted, but the only after-school club was full up. It was gutting.

"It's very tiring, people saying they will call you and as soon as they realise you're a female or have a child, disregard you straight away.

"I have my qualifications passed with distinctions, I'm a hard worker reliable and am no different to a male apart from my looks.

"I've been thinking about even going to train in something else, because I just don't feel like I'm ever going to get that break to find something."

Ashleigh says starting her own business is not an option this early in her career.

"I just don't feel confident to do that at the moment," she explained.

"I wanted to find somebody I could maybe work alongside, or a company - even if it was just a day or two a week.

"But to get any kind of chance, it's so hard."

Ashleigh fears female tradespeople are frequently discriminated against due to their gender, or issues around childcare.

"There are more females going into those kinds of trades now, but they're hit with the 'you're a female and you can't do what men do, you don't have the strength that men have'," she said.

"But there are a lot of females out there that can do what men do, and sometimes better.

"And there is a big market out there for female tradespeople - for people that have been through domestic violence, or elderly people that maybe don't trust many tradesmen because they hear of all the cowboys."

Frustrated, Ashleigh took to Facebook to share her story in a bid to find work.

Her post attracted more than a hundred comments, with many tradespeople full of sympathy.

One female mechanic said: "Hope you find somewhere. Completely understand where you're coming from.

"Been with my employer for 15 years now and there's still people there who think I don't know what I'm doing. Don't give up."

A male welder added: "There should be more women in 'men's' trades. I worked as a welder for years and only ever met two women welders, but both of them worked like the guys - or harder most days."