UK skills gap

ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the skills gap facing the UK’s engineering and technology sector.

The IETs annual survey of 500 companies has today revealed that the number of business expecting to face difficulties in recruiting adequate suitably qualified engineers, technicians or technologists over the next four years has risen from 40.2 per cent in 2006 to 51.8 per cent in 2007.

 

Stakeholder Response: The IET

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Paul Jackson, director of professional operations at the IET, said: "The engineering and technology sector is vital to the future prosperity to the UK’s economy and an increase in skills shortages puts the future growth, success and competitive advantage of many businesses into serious doubt.

"The UK desperately needs to increase the pool of engineers and technicians to meet demand."

 

Stakeholder Response: The Royal Academy of Engineering

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The Royal Academy of Engineering said: "The UK’s output of engineers is stagnating.

"Between 1994 and 2004 the entries to university engineering courses remained stubbornly static at about 24,500 even though total university admissions went up by 40 per cent in the same period.”

"International developments make the situation serious – mature economies like the UK must now compete with those of rapidly developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"On current projections the combined GDPs of these nations will overtake those of the US, UK, Germany, Japan, France and Italy by 2040.

"The developing nations are producing record numbers of graduate engineers to fuel their technological and economic development – China and India produce over half a million engineers every year.

"We face a double challenge now. Not only do we need many more engineers we need a new type of education for them – much of the current teaching would still be familiar to engineers of my generation.

"The traditional boundaries of the various engineering disciplines inherited from the 19th Century are being blurred by new industries like medical engineering and nanotechnology. 

"If we don’t address this problem the UK could slide into insignificance as an internationally competitive nation.

"The Academy found that the best UK engineering graduates are still world class but there are not enough of them and industry is already reporting skills shortages.

"Industry wants graduates with more experience of problem solving, group ‘design and make’ projects, and applying theory to real industrial problems.

"Students need opportunities to work in genuine industrial environments through work placements and projects and university staff need to be able to develop new teaching material with input from companies, learning from the success of academic-industrial research links.

"Fixing the deficiencies in our engineering courses will not come cheaply.

"Current funding for engineering students at UK universities is £8,000 per annum – the universities estimate that they need £11,000-12,000 to teach engineering in ways which will retain and develop the UK’s historic reputation for excellence in this area."

 

Stakeholder Response: e-skills UK

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Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK, said: "Recent e-skills UK research indicated that skills gaps among new recruits remain an issue for many employers of ICT professionals.  

"Our research found that around one in five employers said gaps in technical skills (18 per cent) and communications skills (13 per cent) were reasons for not employing new graduates into ICT roles.

"Around four in 10 (38 to 40 per cent) employers considered the level of business, non-technical and interpersonal skills of new recruits to be below company requirements.

"We need to ensure new graduates enter the workforce better prepared to meet the requirements of the business.

"Employers are looking increasingly for graduates with a blend of technical, business and personal skills.

"We are working with universities to support them in also offering employer-supported business technology degree courses such as the Information Technology Management for Business degree, which will be offered by 13 universities by September 2007.

"Skills gaps for the existing workforce of ICT professionals are at their highest level since 2004. 

"It is vital that ICT professionals are encouraged and able to develop their skills throughout their careers to meet the challenges and opportunities of globalisation and emerging technologies.

"We are keen to support educators and training providers in devising innovative approaches to professional development for the IT workforce – approaches that will help to address outstanding skills gaps for the existing workforce and also ‘fast track’ new entrants’ capability so that they can take on more demanding, value-added roles from an earlier stage in their career."