Engineering recruitment expert, Kris Feaviour, who manages Cambridge-based Barker Ross Technical which specialises in recruiting across engineering, manufacturing and scientific industries, points to engineering apprenticeships as being crucial to solving the UK’s engineering skills crisis.
Based in Cambridge, supplying staff to some of world’s leading product development companies in Silicon Fen, Barker Ross is often called upon to find highly qualified engineers and scientists for research companies. The company also has a healthy demand for engineers and technical experts to help keep production lines going in manufacturing companies – companies who rely on cost effective lean solutions to modern production issues.
Iit is often easier to seek out PhD qualified R&D specialists than it is to find experienced manufacturing engineers to work on busy production lines. This could be because the company is next door to Cambridge University, which has produced 90 Nobel Laureates alone, a figure that is greater than the whole of France. Having been in engineering recruitment for some time, Feaviour is full aware that the shortage of practically orientated mechanical and electrical engineers is a problem across the whole of the UK.
According to the campaign to promote engineering in schools, Tomorrow’s Engineering, companies in the UK are projected to have 2.74 million job openings between 2010 and 2020, 1.86 million of which will need engineering skills. So there is no shortage of opportunity for people who want to take-up engineering as a career.
Feaviour is experiencing a big skills shortage amongst engineers with three to five years industry experience. These are people educated to degree level, or with relevant vocational qualifications, engineers who are used to working under pressure and coming up with innovative solutions to keep processes going, or to design test and NPI processes which will enhance the productivity of a manufacturing line. That is something you can’t learn at university – it has to be picked up on the job.
Whilst we need the most highly qualified academic engineers to help develop tomorrow’s technology, what we also need to recognise is that the requirement for practical ‘hands on’ engineers who can think on their feet. I believe that this skills shortage could be solved by greater concentration on developing engineering apprenticeships and encouraging young people to see engineering as a career that you can take-up, without incurring the cost of going the university route to qualification.
As a recruitment company Barker Ross can get round the shortage by scouring from the pool of well qualified non-EU candidates who approach them, with companies offering VISA support in order to attract the best talent, but the UK needs to inspire more young people to see engineering as a career option. Feaviour believes that we are moving in the right direction and is a great supporter of the Tomorrow’s Engineers campaign, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering UK.
Employers are crying out for engineering graduates, particularly in growth areas such as environmental solutions, electro-mechanical integration, medical engineering, high performance automotive and green power. Feaviour believes that a concentration on training more engineers via apprenticeships could produce more well rounded performers, as the academic route can encourage specialising in a particular discipline too early. As apprentices are more often in the workplace, they will pick up more practical skills and be able to make a real difference to keeping production costs down, as well provide a long term solution to succession planning in key business areas.
