Skills and Demand in Industry report 2015

The IET carries out annual surveys of businesses to gauge the state of skills in the engineering and technology sector.

This year marks a decade of the IET’s Skills and Demand in Industry report. The 2015 report identifies ongoing high demand for engineers, with jobs on the increase this year in many sectors, and businesses generally reporting increased confidence in their ability to recruit the numbers of employees they need.

However, more than half of employers surveyed say that recruits don’t reach the expected standard and nearly two thirds think skills gaps are a threat to their business. Our report highlights how together we can develop the next generation of engineering and IT employees - but also how employers can ensure their experienced staff increase and retain their skills - and address these gaps in partnership with education institutions and with government.

The findings are based on telephone interviews with over 400 employers of engineering and technology staff drawn from across the United Kingdom undertaken in June 2015.