As Brexit moves into its final stages and the government sets out its proposals for a new immigration system, it is important that the government continues to listen to the needs of employers – particularly in the engineering sector, argues Alexander Jan, chief economist at Arup
In the week before Christmas, the government finally published its White Paper on immigration. The policy proposals will come into force over a transition period, when – or perhaps increasingly if – we disengage from the current arrangements in place with our fellow EU and EFTA countries.
Proposals include a 12 month visa for so called low skilled workers with “restricted entitlements and rights.” It was going to be eleven months. That would have meant visa holders would not have shown up in headline immigration statistics. There is also the prospect of a minimum salary requirement of £30,000 for skilled (or so-called ‘Tier 2’) visa applicants coming from the rest of Europe. This would bring EU/EEA applicants “into line” with individuals from the rest of the world seeking higher paid employment. Notwithstanding the loosening of quotas, the White Paper signals the most significant tightening of British immigration policy since the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962.
Immigration is politically fraught. On the one hand the government is keen to show it is responding to public concerns. Immigration shows up in polls as to why some people voted for Brexit. On the other, non-UK labour has proven invaluable in sustaining the British economy. Many sectors – from care workers to corporate finance – have a significant degree of dependence on the two million plus EEA nationals – plus millions of other overseas individuals – who have made Britain their home. Without them, vital public services such as health and social care and the City would suffer.
The infrastructure, construction and engineering sectors are no exceptions. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, we need nearly 200,000 new engineers and engineering technicians a year until 2022. It would be impossible for the UK to fill all of these positions with home grown talent alone. And as the academy points out, engineering is a sector which often needs large numbers of skills to help deliver a particular phase of a project. Arup – and our clients – rely on the ability to move staff between countries as a new railway, tall building or power station evolves from the drawing board to delivery. For Arup, international mobility is key to fostering a unique culture in our staff owned business. This in turn helps us deliver better solutions for clients by retaining the best talent. Barriers to movement risk creating delay and cost increases to projects and damaging the competitiveness of UK engineering; a sector that is not only important to the domestic economy – but is also key to Britain’s export success.
If we are going to reform the present immigration model, a number of objectives for policy should be centre stage. As a recent report from business campaigning group London First highlights, these should include providing business with access to people and talent at all levels. “Low pay” does not equate with “low skilled”. And whilst we should look to further investment in training and education for UK citizens, the sheer scale of the country’s requirements for lower and higher paid jobs mean it will be essential to allow access to overseas labour in the years ahead. London First’s report suggests a ‘Tier 2’ salary threshold of £20,155 (the London living wage). The White Paper has put a threshold of £30,000 out to consultation. London First also advocate no artificial caps on visas. The government appears to have listened to that request. And any revised system will need to be based on much better data. That would help to build trust with the public and allow for a more informed debate about policy in the future.
Brexit – in whatever form it takes – is just months away. For the wellbeing of the UK’s economy and the engineering sector, it is imperative that the government comes forward with an immigration policy that supports long term growth and competitiveness. It should explicitly acknowledge that creating opportunities for all those who wish to work or contribute to such an important part of Britain’s industrial base is a good thing and then back this up with sensible policy proposals. As the White Paper goes to consultation, it is imperative businesses respond and have their voices heard. And that includes the engineering community. Whatever the outcome of March 29th, an evidence-based, progressive immigration policy that allows all sectors of the economy to prosper and grow is urgently needed.
Surely we need to train our own youth rather than keep importing Engineers
It’s our education system that is failing
We need both. Absolutely both.
Our country could try given real incentives to our youth to get into engineering! Schools are poor at telling kids what engineers can do, what they do and even on top of that, speaking as a student engineer, the best opportunities for UK graduate and experienced engineers alike is to take employment abroad. Other countries are offering far more exciting roles with much better benefits. We only need immigration because there is little to no incentive in this country to train for 5+ years to get a boring position with the same or less salary than other occupations that apparently aren’t in such high demand. Logic tells me that if supply is low and demand is high then those who are qualified to fill that demand should be rewarded accordingly.
Not just our education system, also industry’s apprentice training programme. Still, why spend money on training what you need when you can let other countries spend the money and just steal the benefits.
Regarding training of young engineers, the UK was a leading country in the times BM (Before Maggie), when R&D became a penalty on companies as did diversification and stock-holding. Training and apprenticeships more or less stopped as asset stripping raved.
We have not recovered, despite the efforts of TATA in the UK, who are one of the few companies to have supported R&D and production in the UK over the last decade.
Many years ago the maligned (much-deserved) President Marcos of the Philippines launched training as a national priority and the country is still reaping the benefits of that as their skilled workers are in world-wide demand and a major contributor to their GDP: maybe we could learn from his good points!
Unfortunately this situation will always prevail. I have lived through many a recession and it’s always the same old story. Low to zero apprentice/graduate intake and redundant engineers retraining and moving out of engineering. Once the upturn comes along there is inevitably a shortage of trained engineers. How ironic that the very people who make such short-sighted decisions are the first to moan of their consequences.
The problem is that there would appear to be no end to immigration – more immigrants need mores services, more houses, more hospital beds, school places etc which in turn needs more immigrants etc etc. Surely the future of certain industries needs to be questioned – if soft fruit growing can only happen with a foreign workforce maybe the industry should not exist, why have an expanded engineering sector if UK workers do not want to work in it, etc.
What the writer does not take into account is the type of country we want to live in – do we really need extra wealth for that extra holiday, clothing. over eating etc, to at the same time see green fields being built over, ‘our culture’ changing and our country gradually filling up.
I appreciate that this may not suit the writers business model…
As this article is linked in to Brexit, if ‘Project Fear’ is to be believed then we can expect a surplus of engineers rather than a shortage (with the roles reversed and us ‘brits’ becoming the illegal immigrants crossing to France on our dingys).
I am an Englishman working in Germany, surrounded by colleagues of many nationalities. In my opinion, there is so much to learn from their different skills, knowledge, working practices and mentalities – things that just cannot be taught in colleges or universities. I firmly believe that immigration is important on so many different levels, instead of making jobs available just for the British. Instead, anyone that is willing to work should be offered the opportunity, regardless of where they come from. Just a thought…
We need both UK trained and overseas workers for our skilled jobs. The notion that we should always recruit locally is an unnecessary form of parochialism and a rather small minded way to limit our nations ambitions, particularly when our competitors operate in a global context.
The bottom line is that we need immigration. This country has been built by immigrants be they Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman, Huguenot and so on. That is what being British means.
Once again the great god ‘Economy’ is invoked, we will all prosper by the import of cheap labour…really? I assume thats the royal ‘we’ What I see is youngsters leaving school with zero valid careers advice to student loans that 80% will never earn enough to pay back, an NHS that is collapsing under its own weight that can’t service the increasing demands made upon it, housing thats coating the country in bricks and tarmac with houses no-one can afford without mortgage jiggery pokery, roads that are so overcrowded driving has become a nightmare, all of it is self perpetuating, more people need more houses need more roads need more doctors and on and on. None of it has improved or even maintained my standard of life and I’ve definitely not prospered. If your business relies on cheap imported labour to sustain it then you’ve got the wrong business model and deserve to fail.
Try shafting your companies and see how that helps.
Not only is this shortage due to companies not investing in training. The education system has pushed young people away from engineering as it was seen as a dirty option and to get on you need a degree. A good cnc operator can command a high salary and given the right opportunity you can go further. I speak from personal experience as a machinist who now has a bsc in business management
Ah once again we hear the customary refrain from engineering companies we cannot recruit the staff we need.
Try training more kids.
Try encouraging innovation in your employees.
If you think about it, each country has to specialise a bit and that means that the ready supply of experience for any particular skill is not going to be evenly spread out over the world.
I’ld be very happy and appreciate if I get a chance to work with you people as I’ve bachelor’s degree in civil engineering having 4+ years of field exp and currently working here in UAE as civil engineer.
Spot on! Due to english being an international language and the still somewhat high living standards the UK is an attractive locations for workers from abroad. Great for them, not so great if you live here unless you have a relative/buddy that can get you a job. Recent figures state that for graduates 70% of interns are a relative of an employee at the firm!!! That is now pretty much the only route to a job that pays more than peanuts or involves heavy lifting/sales. Globalisation and monopolies have increased the intake of immigrants and created overspecialised roles that require constant relocating. Stable engineering jobs without a relative/buddy are dead in the UK.
I should know I never found one, as soon as the project finished i was stuffed out the door.
You fancy sending one of those jobs this way? I changed industry a few years ago and am really struggling to find a way in to a new sector. A lack of lower-tier, development positions across UK industry is evident: especially amongst the SME companies.
How about companies raise their shockingly low wages for hard working engineers in order to encourage UK graduates to stay in the UK instead of leaving for Germany or the US in search of a fair wage. Once wages have been inflated the wage shortage will be reduced gradually (over a generation), and immigration would only need to be considered as a last, temporary resort whilst a new influx of engineers are trained. Companies should also invest in training instead of relying on the education system which has clearly failed in creating engineers. Investment and high wages will be enough to draw UK students and graduates. Immigration is an unsustainable solution proposed by businesses which have no interest in paying their employees a fair wage.
As someone who had spent a lifetime doing a job I loved and was proud to do(welder/fabricator) it has been saddening to see that although there are lots of people who talk the talk about how we should train our own workforce to carry out the jobs available, show me someone in the young workforce who wants to get their hands dirty even for what some people would call good money,certainly better than the £15.00/ week it was when I started, without foreign workers we cannot hope to run engineering or even lowly fruit and veg picking ,unless you know someone?
Companies need to invest in ongoing training and offer salaries and opportunities to retain staff (not just attract fresh meat).
I’m very pro movement of labour, but it shouldn’t be manipulated as a race to the bottom, something that is missed at higher levels, within business and the government.
The institutions need to support engineers and training at a grass roots level. They are run from ivory towers in the centre of London, most of their members will never see. Training courses should be free to members and available locally. Not eyewatering prices (again in the centre of London!) far outside the reach of functional level engineers.
Prior contributors highlight the training problem, which is still on-going in SME companies. What sort of Engineers does Mr Jan require? The problem is no one is very specific about the skills actually required. A broad sweep of “we need Engineers” is not very helpful in terms of solving a skills shortage. We know that the lack of companies training in house is a major stumbling block. Arup appears to start their graduates after they have their degrees, so 3/4 years of in-house training is lost.
Yes. immigration does plug a gap, but we must look at the new technologies and train people accordingly.
‘…what sort of engineers are required?’ – that’s the fundamental question. How about giving the students the flexibility to work that out for themselves and offering them the ability to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for their desired path? I’m the university level learning leader for engineering at the top FE college in the country and in my experience, the biggest barriers to appropriate skills development arise from the fact that there is little recognition at the higher levels that non-vocational and vocational courses should be VERY different – with different delivery, development and assessment strategies and focus. For non-vocational/academic courses the aim is generally to identify the quality of ‘knowledge’ learning DURING the course, whereas for vocational courses the emphasis should be placed to a greater extent on identifying the quality of learning AFTER the course!
FYI – I’m a Technical Expert Panel member for the ETF and I’m currently trying to embed a new strategy/Vision for my students, but I’m having to fight hard to move away from the non-vocational policies that I’m still forced to comply with:
My Vision is to enable students to enhance their own learning outside the classroom by creating a ‘Total Learning Environment (TLE)’ In society and industry. This will be achieved by encouraging students to develop their own LinkedIn network to enable them to identify and connect with people who would be willing to enhance their learning in any way that the student or society/industry may need or want’. In my experience, there are 100s of thousands of people who would gladly help or mentor my students in their areas of expertise, but at the moment this enormous potential resource is entirely wasted. The common social media platforms are inappropriate for the students to host their own TLE but LinkedIn has proved to offer a safe and appropriate platform for each student to build their own personal skills development network.