62% of engineering employers say graduates don’t have the right skills for today’s workplace, while 68% are concerned that the education system will struggle to keep up with the skills required for technological change, according to the 2016 Skills and Demand in Industry report, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) today.
To address these growing concerns over skills gaps in the engineering workforce, particularly among graduates and school leavers, 91% of companies agreed that to improve the supply of engineers and technicians, more employers need to provide work experience for those in education or training.
Based on interviews with over 400 UK engineering employers the report highlights deep concerns about the engineering skills gap, diversity issues, the role of education and a lack of experienced engineering staff all come under the spotlight.
It also echoes the results of The Engineer’s Brexit recruitment report (published last week), with 40 per cent of those surveyed by the IET believing that their recruitment will be negatively impacted over the next four to five years following this summer’s referendum vote.
Commenting on the report Naomi Climer, IET President, said: “Demand for engineers is high but the report reveals deeper concern than ever around the skills and experience of our future workforce. As we are facing an engineering shortfall in the next decade, and some uncertainty around skills following Brexit, it is more important than ever that we develop the next generation of ‘home grown’ engineering and technology talent.
In response to some of the problems identified by the report, the IET is launching a new campaign: ‘Engineering Work Experience for All’ to champion the need for more employers and universities to collaborate to offer quality work experience to engineering students. The campaign is designed to rally employers, universities, Government and students to make a range of different, quality work experience opportunities more widespread.
The overwhelming majority of respondents to The Engineer’s recent poll (63.83 per cent) on the topic believe the work placements whilst studying will be the most effective way to ensure that the next generation of university graduates have the best possible chance to hit the ground running.
Key findings of the report include:
Education, employment and skills gaps
- 52% of employers are currently seeking new engineering and technology recruits
- 57% are currently, or have recently, experienced problems recruiting senior engineers with 5-10 years’ experience
- 50% find that a typical new engineering and technology recruit does not meet their reasonable expectations
Engineering work experience
- 76% of employers agree that compelling all engineering and technology companies to provide work experience would improve the pool of engineering talent
- 53% don’t know how the apprentice levy can benefit their organisation
Diversity and inclusion
- 9% of the UK engineering and technology workforce are female
- 63% of businesses don’t have gender diversity initiatives in place (increased from 57% in 2015)
- 73% don’t have LGBT or ethnic diversity initiatives in place
- 40% of employers agree that their organisation could do more to recruit people from diverse backgrounds
Considering graduate engineers, employers are asking for placements and experience. For a company seeking 20 engineering graduates in a year, are they providing 20+ placements (either full year or Summer)? The overall picture is far from this. Competition among students for the limited number of full-year placements is fierce, and at the same time students at more traditional non-sandwich universities are increasingly seeking a placement year. Employers need a rethink – some have big placement schemes and perceive big benefits while others do not. Government financial assistance (or probably adding to a student’s loan to fund the employer) seems wrong on a paid placement, but helping companies perceive the benefits and organise good placements would be more valuable.
Well, 2 things should be observed:
1) Don’t just “provide” “work experience” for no pay. If students want to work, pay them.
2) Don’t just say: they need experience, and when they want to start working to get that experience, reject them because they don’t have experience.
The starting salary for bachelors shall be higher than minimum wage to encourage people to go to university in the first place.
Oh well, that LGBT inclusion stuff. I once worked for a company that had that shiny LGBT policy. But only in their head office. In their foreign subsidiaries, where I worked, they had nothing. They paid housing assistance to expats, and more assistance for married expats. But if you were gay, you couldn’t marry. Hence, you couldn’t get higher assistance if you lived in a partnership – not because you were gay, but because you weren’t married…
There was the rumour that the chairman preferred married managers. So you knew your chance of a promotion.
They were “keen” on education. But you could be transferred to another city or country at a drop of a hat. How do you plan university courses this way?
There are so many policies that exist only on paper.
I had one policy when I employed people: if I can communicate with the new comer and s/he understands what we are doing and is actively involving him/herself, they got hired.
And one more: annual pay rise favoured the lower income. So when inflation was 5% the lowest income might get a 30% rise, while the upper income gets only a 5% rise.
And probably one more: preferably I hired in a recession, when I got time for interviews and training. When the economy recovered, I had trained staff to work for customers.
Maybe companies who complain about ‘the wrong skills’ are just (unwittingly) using it as a cover for poor processes and product designs?:
Let’s take another view on this almost eternally wearysome and circular subject relating Education to Skills to Training and to responsibilities of the three. My personal view is that Universities should primarily be ‘Educating’ ie primarily passing on knowledge involving emphasis on timeless ‘principles’ and broader subjects rather than ‘skills’ which often change over a relatively short time.
However, whatever my view is on the above – let’s take a ‘productivity’ view of how our now stereotypical ‘wet behind the ears’, unskilled (at least in the ‘relevant’ skills) millennial is incorporated effectively and efficiently into an employer’s organisation. A good measure of a productive, efficient organisation might correlate to how long (and hence how effective) is their ‘onboarding’ process for fresh recruits to achieve a set level of ability as an engineer? The shorter the onboarding the more organised they are as a company.
As well as being a measure of their abilities to train, it might just be that their processes and products might be TOO Complex and open to a bit of Lean ‘Analysis’?
some experience in basic areas are needed. I do not have the time and the strength to take book only engineer and pay she or him to follow me around as I try to hold class while tying to get my own work done. Now when you look at the bigger issue of having now work experience it comes in several forms. things like:
-Work is sometimes not fun
-Work as engineer is not were you learn basic skills needed to use your education
I keep trying to explain to human resouces and hiring manges, persons back ground and previous work of all kinds have to be questioned. If engineer has not reference point to draw parallels with, it painful to relate real world issues to.
Try having engineers work in the following first:
-Assembly line electrics production
-electrician helper
-plumber helper
-mechanic helper
now when I get them I have a reference point to work with. they have hand tool experience.
this experience is earned and not paid as junior engineer. it builds their usefulness and information base to pull from as you have them work as electronics tech before trying to design some that is not have a chance of working. It also helps them learn how to test what they design.
several of my professors and mentors pointed out, “If you can not test it, You can not design it” and I add you will never have it work right and long either.
I still recall the comment from the dean (of a Faculty of Textiles, not Engineering but immediately applicable) of one Uni: “I want us to teach/train our undergraduates to ‘think’ as textile people: the details are much less important” I believe he summed-up all that is described as being important to Engineers and Engineering.
on the engineering requirments it should be STILL not again
Manufacturing firms have treated employees shabbily for decades and yet they have the gall to criticise the Government for the poor quality of skills possessed by young people emanating from the education system, when in fact, it is their responsibility to invest in specialised, on-the-job training for apprentices and new graduates so that they can, as task performers, perform the full range of job functions prevalent on engineering contracts.
It is a well-known fact that fresh talent with innovative ideas, particularly young people with degrees in STEM subjects are shunning a career in the defence engineering industry because of its negative image in the press & media, persistent failure to deliver military equipment within time, cost and performance boundaries and a complete absence of professional, ethical and moral leadership. Older, wiser defence workers will be familiar with having to perform under a brutally repressive management regime, put up with poor work conditions and have their work-life balance destroyed by excessive workloads.
Additionally, instead of looking upon people on their payroll as human beings with hopes, fears and insecurities, individuals are treated like ‘economic units’ by Defence Contractors – to be bought and sold like commodities, at will, in the free market to serve their own narrow commercial interests.
What’s more, in their desperation to quickly build-up their project performance team to full strength following down-selection for a military equipment contract, Defence Contractors have been less than honest with apprentices and new graduates about their individual role in the project performance team, the job content and near term career prospects – because they are not bound by a ‘Code on Ethical Behaviour in Business’. Consequently, these newcomers have no choice but to align their personal and career goals with those of their new employer on the basis of what they are told. It is the disappointment of discovering a substantial gap between the reality on the ground and what they were led to believe at interview, that causes these new starters to leave.
Even more disturbingly, in the interests of furthering their careers in today’s mobile labour market, many young defence workers, especially those possessing highly marketable skills (the crème de la crème) are willing to extend their commitment and loyalty only, as far as the next pay packet – having adopted this tactic from observing, at first hand, the behaviour of their own employers who have, for many years demonstrated their willingness to provide a service to the Ministry of Defence which extends only as far as the next milestone payment!
Worse still, whereas every Contractor has got a Staff Recruitment Policy, none has a Staff Retention Policy.
@JagPatel3 on twitter
Do these complainers offer decent apprenticeships in their companies? Too many employers want to poach people trained elsewhere without making any effort to offer training themselves.
In my apprenticeship in the early 1970’s, I believe the government footed a large chunk of my training costs. My company Fords at the time had it’s own training centre. In this time of squeezed finances and little government funding for apprentices, how is there likely to be an improvement in the capabilities of young practical and academic Engineers. It is expensive to train engineers, so it is little wonder that providing of time and resources to this is in decline, but what is it reasonable ratio of government / employer contribution to get this working again, and has the government the political will to make it happen?
As has been said earlier, education to teach a particular subject, normally provided by an educational establishment, involves a demonstration of data handling techniques, (QED). Teaching a skill is quite different, more a demonstration of a view of practical solutions to a problem, what, how, why. This is often described as “if it looks right, it probably is right” Much more difficult to teach. The instructor needs to be one to one on the same wavelength as the learner. The skill learned provides a “seat of pants” solution and the recipient becomes the owner of the solution. This has much more value added than a piecemeal design option.
I suggest that skill learning of this type requires an open mind and needs to be commenced at about the same time as e.g. learning to ride a bicycle.
Great article and discussion of the need for training in engineering, and probably many other fields.
Why does the IET bring Brexit into this discussion? The negotiations have not even started yet, so this is a red-herring to placate the anti-Brexit press.
The Philippines regard trained technicians as a major export and now supply skilled people to many countries: maybe we will be doing the same in a generation as we cease making anything but weapons and cars: ergo, we will also need language training for our engineers!
I believe that children have a natural curiosity that is largely killed by the current educational system, which teaches facts over the qualities of self-reliance and true intelligence.
Maybe it’s time that the process of shaping the next generation of engineers began in the school classroom, with at least 50% of the curriculum being given up to vocational teaching. Alternatively, extend the school day by 2 hours so that a vocational module can be added in. I believe this would not only help to provide the skills we need as a nation, but would also help to engage the sort of people who are not academically-oriented and are currently being effectively consigned to the scrapheap.
Wholly agree Ed.
What we need is to go back to the days of “work experience” where school children can do a week at local companies, they can see the companies in action and choose a profession they may like and work towards it, they can tailor their school subjects towards a general profession area and get the support to learn those skills necessary for that field.
Tailoring skills and subjects with effect is crucial, they can then be educated in that area of expertise and reduce their area of work experience to within their chosen area, maybe do a week of work experience every month in their chosen, but narrowed area, with different companies in that field of expertise.
Unfortunately too many schools are results driven and financially driven and this is the fault of Governments by forcing them into the position of being results driven to get the money they all desire.
The skill shortage is in HR. They see their keywords and don’t invite anyone who doesn’t fit 100%.
They are looking for a mechanic with 20 years experience in fuel-cell powered mobile phones because that is the new department they want people for. Anyone who only has experience in batteries don’t need to apply. And there is the “skill set gap”.
Either put engineers into HR, or have engineers participating in the selection process. HR can do the scheduling, offering tea, preparing the contract, talking about no-smoking policy etc.
A proper engineer can work into neighbouring fields. He has to. And he wants to. That’s why he became an engineer. Because of the challenges and opportunities. But you kill them with administrative nonsense.
In the interview have engineers talking to engineers. They speak the same language.