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2009 Issues Archive
9 December 2009
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Manufacturers need 600,000 skilled workers
The UK will need to recruit more than half a million skilled workers to the manufacturing sector by 2017 if it is to retain its place as a leading trading nation, a report has claimed.
New opportunities in green technologies and the need to replenish an ageing skills base will create 587,000 manufacturing vacancies in the next seven years, according to a report on the state of the industry by Engineering UK.
The level of recruitment will put the education system under enormous pressure.
Paul Jackson, chief executive at Engineering UK, said: “There has never been a more crucial time for engineering. Britain is still the sixth biggest manufacturer in the world and the sector still produces a massive amount of our GDP.
“It has a very bright future, but if we want to stay a world leader then we need enough people with the right sorts of skills coming through our academic base.”
Jackson said that there had been a 30% decrease in the number of further education lecturers in engineering and manufacturing and that this fall would have to be addressed to avoid shortages of advanced engineering skills.
“If we are going to meet this level of recruitment, the training system has to be in place,” he said.
However, a leading engineering lecturer has claimed that it would take 14 years to produce more than 500,000 entrants to the manufacturing industry – double the length of time suggested in the Engineering UK report.
Professor Sanowar Khan, deputy dean of the school of engineering and mathematical sciences at City University London, said that in the academic year 2007-08 there were just over 40,000 engineering and technology graduates.
“Take that as a ballpark figure – it’s impossible we will reach [587,000 in seven years],” he said.
He added that there had been an increase in STEM subject applications and that numbers of students taking civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineering at City University London had increased.
He was unsure, however, that the trend would continue.
He called for the professional institutions to initiate a major campaign to attract young people into engineering and for companies to provide more support to students in terms of work placements.
“Students who have done placements are far more motivated to go into the industry after they graduate,” he said.
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© PE Publishing, 9 December 2009
