Semta report warns of engineering skills shortage

Semta, the sector skills council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies, has revealed research showing approximately 30,000 skilled engineers need to be added to the UK workforce per year between now and 2016 to fill the gap of highly skilled workers reaching retirement. The new research echoes controversial claims made by Engineering UK (formerly the Engineering Technology Board) in its 2009 annual report that the engineering industry needs to recruit 587,000 skilled workers by 2017.

In contrast, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills expects the UK’s combined skills academies to attract more than 300,000 people to training programmes over the next four years.

Philip Whiteman, chief executive of Semta, said across the spectrum of engineering sectors approximately 30 to 40 per cent of workers are 45 years old and older.

Semta claims a new highly skilled engineering base can be grown from academia and apprenticeship programmes and even recruitment in the current workforce.