Driving opportunity: How green mobility is reshaping the Midlands' skills requirements

The Midlands has a long history as a centre for automotive manufacturing and research and development. It is a key manufacturing location for many automotive manufacturers including Dennis Eagle, GKN Driveline, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, and the UK’s second largest automotive manufacturer, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Cars manufactured in the Midlands by JLR and Toyota make up about 44% of the UK’s vehicle production by value.

In response to the UK Government’s decarbonisation policies, the region has also been positioning itself as a specialist in emerging future mobility technologies. This article examines the labour market for the skills the Midlands will need to fulfil its ambitions in low carbon mobility. We have focussed on the low carbon automotive sector, although the region also has ambitions in other low carbon mobility sectors, such as aerospace.

Fig. 1 shows the number of unique Engineering and Manufacturing job postings in the Midlands by companies involved in Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers, semi-trailers, and other transport equipment. Unique job postings declined rapidly in the Midlands after 2017, before slumping in the early part of the Covid pandemic and accelerating steeply afterwards. The decline in the Midlands data after 2017 mirrors the fortunes of the automotive manufacturing sector, with car production declining from its peak in 2016, and slumping during the pandemic. The chilling effects of Brexit uncertainty are perhaps evident in the pre-pandemic decline.