A new study suggests that engineering roles are the hardest for recruiters to fill, while separate figures highlight a continued skills shortage across the UK as a whole.
According to the study from jobsite CV-Library, almost half of recruiters (49.9 per cent) think that engineering is the toughest sector to place candidates in. Across all sectors, 65 per cent admitted having difficulties finding the right candidates to fill roles, with over a third (34.2 per cent) saying candidates have unrealistic expectations.
“In a job market where candidates now have more selection, it’s unsurprising to see that recruiters are struggling to fill the growing number of roles available,” said Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library. “That, combined with the growing concern over skills shortages continue to cause a problem for the engineering industry.”
That skills shortage was highlighted by figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Its latest report, published today in conjunction with KPMG, showed that although permanent placements continued to rise in August, the rate of growth was at its lowest in 27 months.
The availability of candidates for permanent roles also fell throughout the month, with the rate of decline the fastest for the year to date. The good news for those seeking work is that with vacancies continuing to rise, salary growth remains strong.
“Because of the scarcity of talent available, we expect that employment will continue to grow but at a slower speed than we have seen over the past two years,” said REC chief executive Kevin Green.
“In response to worsening skills shortages, employers are focussing on retaining the staff they have and this will promote wage growth. Better investment in training and motivating the current workforce should also help to improve productivity.”
Bernard Brown, a partner at KPMG, speculated that the sharp drop-off in available candidates for August may be down to job seekers taking a break for the month, with the expectation of more opportunities being available in September.
“The number of people looking for a job fell at the sharpest rate seen for a year, leaving unfilled posts across the economy,” he said. “Many candidates may have simply shelved their plans for the summer, believing their prospects to be stronger in September.”
On of the main problems in my experience in the field is recruters – certainly the ones I have delt with (with a single exception) – seem not to truely understand Engineering and are over-reliant on job-specs written by non-engineers.
Despite applying for over 3000 roles in the last three years (ONLY roles I am competent to undertake, hit the ground running and geographically suited for) I have had two interviews in those three years. The first was recruiting for a Designer in a high-risk petrochemical area.
When during the interview I started to discuss the method for prooving the design mathematically, the interviewer laughed, rolled his eyes and said “the last guys said 100mm profile would probably be a sufficient strut, so we just went with that!”
The second I’m now employed in as an Engineer doing an Order Processing role…?!? It wasn’t what was on the job-spec, what I interviewed for or was sold or agreed to….again…no Engineering involvement (oh…that said, had a conversation with the company “Mechanical Design Engineer” on Thursday and he didn’t know what a cantilever was…..HELP!
Hit the nail on the head!
I totally agree with the comments above.
The level of incompetence by some of the staff at agencies is unbelievable and the hoops you have jump through just to get someone to read your CV is frustrating to say the least!
Firstly your CV has to be written in a way that gets it through the computer filtering system! Some companies even offer a CV update service to get your CV through this filter by inserting Key words obviously at a cost.
Secondly a real person may read your CV and have to compare it to a job spec that is written in anything other than plain English.
Thirdly they may phone you for a brief chat and invariably, in my experience, have little idea of what the job is about in any detail.
And fourthly they are filter as to whether your CV goes off to a potential employer!
How crazy this all is? Where’s the human element to all this, after all it is real people that are being employed.
As a Technician/Engineer with over thirty years experience in Mechanical Engineering and the fact that we keep hearing that there is a shortage of engineering skills, all I can say is,is it any wonder. if engineering companies choose to off load their HR departments to outside contractors who are philosophically very distant from an engineering environment?
If employers were prepared to look they would find all the skills they need from Eastern and Mediterranean EU.
If a lot of companies are now retraining their existing staff, how many are taking on new staff from other disciplines and training them up (and if you know any, who are they?). I know plenty of people with Science backgrounds that also can’t get into careers based on their areas of expertise and who would love the opportunity to retrain in Engineering disciplines. The biggest blocker seems to be that employers want young graduates and overlook those older people who have good work ethics and drive.
Wow iain and anon.. i thought it was just me.. i totally agree, agencies are more of a hinderence than help in this job market
If employers were prepared to offer the correct package and people investment they would find all the skills they need within the UK.
I represent the Talent Attraction team (HR) for Raytheon Systems and we are finding it increasingly difficult to attract Engineering Professionals.
We have multiple opportunities around the UK and I would welcome interested parties to contact me directly.
It always amazes me that companies, particularly the larger ones are always complaining that they cannot find enough skilled people. I often ask myself the following questions about these claims:
1 – Why is it acquaintances and friends of mine with various skills that are allegedly in short supply, and with years of experience, cannot get a job, in middle age after they have been made redundant ? Age discrimination ? Surely not ? That’s illegal and UK companies would not dare break the law of the land would they ?
2 – Do these employers expect people, male or female to leave university fully formed and trained in the specific skills and systems the employers are seeking ?
3- Why did these employers stop training apprentices, and others ? Surely not to satisfy the bean counters ? Oh – I forgot most of these bigger companies are run by bean counters – not engineers, chemists or whatever discipline the company mainly operates in. Germany of course works almost exclusively opposite to this format.
4 – Why is there never any real money for training in any form in such companies – and / or why do they need government ( for which read taxpayer ) subsidies to pay for apprenticeships and other trainees ? When often the directors are taking home multi- million pound pay cheques – or share options on which they make even more millions?
Pure hypocrisy seems to be the answer
I do not expect ” answers to these questions on a postcard, any time soon ”
Jaycee
Totally agree with Jaycee, where are the “market forces”in this, we are told if something is scarce its value/wages will rise….never seems like that with engineers in a lot of sectors! We need accountants (aka Directors) out and engineers into engineering!
There are plenty of qualified engineers available, but most of them will not take the reduced terms on offer these days, when an engineer with 25 years experience and knowledge is offered less than a new hire project management trainee. Pay peanuts, only monkeys will apply……..
As a mid level electronics/electrical engineer, with experience In many sectors I can tell you the reasons why there is a shortage. It is very simple, the industry will not train or coach new recuits anymore and simply wants to take them off a shelf from wherever they can find them. Doesn’t sound so bad if your experienced then? Think again! Unless you have worked exactly in their niche industry, are a specialist of 5 years, used the same toolsets, same device family etc then it is a waste of time applying. Plus even you gain the job, theres a pretty good chance you won’t be there for long due to being treated as a disposable tool. Permanent staff are simply cheap contractors on lower wages, thanks to the 2 year period before employment rights are activated in the UK.
Meanwhile the advertised jobs sits there for years sometimes due to managments lack of faith in employees ability to grasp new skills by themselves on the job, no suprise really since most managment are failed engineers that should have been fired instead of promoted. Add the HR department and external recruiters, none of which even know what the words mean on your CV and really is it no surprise the mess that ensues?!
All you need to know to understand all of this has been covered by Scott Adams Dilbert series and is 100% accurate portrayal of many white collar working environments. It isn’t just one group of workers that are at fault it is ALL of them.