This past winter, as her firm slowed to a standstill amid a shortage of orders and workers, she came across a recruitment notice for vocational skills courses. She enrolled. What followed was a story of reinvention that speaks directly to Ukraine's evolving labour market, and to the kind of economic development that increasingly defines Switzerland's engagement there.
Tatyana's three-month training in plumbing and welding took place at the Kyiv Vocational College of Civil Engineering, supported through the EdUP project. Implemented by Swisscontact in Ukraine in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science, the project draws private sector partners Geberit, Sika and Glas Trösch directly into the design and delivery of training, with additional funding from the UBS Optimus Foundation. Its logic is straightforward: skills should respond to real market demand, not to supply alone. In a wartime economy facing an acute shortage of skilled manual workers, that demand is considerable. As many men serve in the military, work in other sectors, or have relocated abroad, women are stepping into roles long coded as "men's professions." In training groups from Kharkiv to Chernihiv, they now sometimes outnumber men.
Tatyana chose plumbing deliberately. Years spent observing installation errors on construction sites had convinced her the work could be done better. She attended every session without exception, commuting daily from Kyiv Oblast, often returning to a home without electricity while her training centre remained warm and lit. The tools intimidated her at first, the angle grinder most of all. Soldering, by contrast, came naturally, drawing on her earlier work with circuits as a radio-electronics engineer. With the encouragement of instructors and classmates, her confidence grew. By the end of the course she could install and assemble meters, solder piping, and handle the everyday repairs most households need.
Within days of finishing, Tatyana registered as a sole proprietor, listing plumbing, ventilation and air conditioning among her activities. She intends to retain her accounting expertise, using it to prepare cost estimates for clients, and to build her client base gradually through word of mouth, starting close to home. Barriers remain. Job listings still specify male applicants, and she encountered prejudice tied as much to her age as to her gender. Yet her trajectory, from unemployment to a registered business in a matter of months, captures what market-oriented, partnership-based vocational training can achieve.
Her advice to other women considering a change after forty is characteristically practical. Try, she says, and do not wait for certainty. At the very least, you gain the experience, and the independence, to solve problems yourself. For Tatyana, that independence is both a livelihood and quiet proof of what reskilling can make possible: one qualified worker, one new enterprise, one small addition to Ukraine's resilience.