UK Skills gap continues to deteriorate warn IET

09 July 2007

The engineering and technology sector is facing a growing recruitment crisis and there is little confidence that the problem will improve in the short or medium term the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) warned today.

The IET’s annual skills survey of 500 companies also revealed that businesses are turning to countries such as India, China and South Africa to plug the skills gap with 48 per cent of companies recruiting from overseas in the last 12 months to cover specific skills shortages.

Business that expect to face difficulties in recruiting adequate suitably qualified engineers, technicians or technologists over the next four years had risen from 40.2 per cent in 2006 to 51.8 per cent in 2007.

Robin McGill, chief executive of 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.”

The IET’s latest survey builds on information from 2006, and shows that although the engineering and technology sector is still growing and recruiting only 56 per cent of respondents believed they would be able to recruit enough people into engineering and technical roles this year. Confidence is down – this represents a fall from 65 per cent believing the same in 2006.

Bob Taylor, E.ON UK board member, said: "The results of the survey underline the difficult skills challenge the industry and our company now face.  We’re taking steps to address that immediate need through re-training initiatives and by bringing in trained engineers who have completed apprenticeships with E.ON in Germany.”  

Bob Taylor continued: “As the research shows, we're not the only company to recruit from overseas and we see this move as a positive way to get the people we need in the field and working on our networks. But the industry needs a combination of measures to bridge the skills gap and that's why we continue to fund and commit to the long term at the same time.”

Carson Bradbury, European Director of Cre8Ventures said: “The acute shortage of highly skilled engineers coming out of our Universities is damaging our regions long-term ability to compete in the Global Market. The IET report cites that the most important criteria for recruiting skilled staff in the UK is to scale business. Nowhere is this truer than within our start-up fabless semiconductor industry, which is now being forced to attract the highly skilled engineers they require from other countries. Consequently there is a collective, urgent call to action for government to significantly improve the quality of our STEM teaching staff as well as the overall image of science based subjects in our schools.”

Other findings:

• Recruitment of women has remained static. Just 7 per cent of the engineering and technology workforce are women and this figure is unlikely to improve with the majority of respondents (52.2 per cent) estimating that the proportion of female candidates recruited to engineering and technology roles will remain the same in the next four years.
• More than 70 per cent of companies in the UK are struggling to recruit experienced or mid career level staff which could threaten growth and competitiveness.
• Companies stated that leadership skills were the most important among experienced or mid career level staff. 90 per cent of companies had to provide additional training with technical, mentoring, coaching and communication and leaderships skills being the top needs being addressed.
• Of those companies recruiting from abroad 46 per cent of those were recruited from the EU.
• 50 per cent of respondents said that they would not be recruiting school leavers.

Other quotes:

Bob Taylor, E.ON UK board member, said: “Today, E.ON needs skilled engineers more than ever as we embark on building the next generation of low carbon power stations, renewing and developing the electricity network and researching tomorrow’s climate friendly energy technology.”

“We're recruiting a record number of graduate engineers and apprentices, and spending £5 million a year on operational training.  We have also established a ground breaking scheme with Aston University and Walsall College to deliver a new specialist foundation degree. This is an example of how industry can work hand-in-hand with academia to ensure that the next generation of UK engineers gets practical, relevant training.”

Jenny Bond

Media and PR Officer

T: 020 7344 5445

E: jennybond@theiet.org