Engineering sector faces recruitment crisis

An Institution of Engineering and Technology product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 11, 2007

Engineering and technology businesses are turning to countries such as India, China and South Africa to plug the skills gap.

The engineering and technology sector is facing a growing recruitment crisis and there is little confidence that the problem will improve in the short or medium term, according to the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology).

The IET's annual skills survey of 500 companies also revealed that businesses are turning to countries such as India, China and South Africa to plug the skills gap with 48% of companies recruiting from overseas in the last 12 months to cover specific skills shortages.

Business that expect to face difficulties in recruiting adequate suitably qualified engineers, technicians or technologists over the next four years had risen from 40.2% in 2006 to 51.8% in 2007.

Paul Jackson, Director of Professional Operations at the IET said: "The engineering and technology sector is vital to the future prosperity to the UK's economy and an increase in skills shortages puts the future growth, success and competitive advantage of many businesses into serious doubt".

"The UK desperately needs to increase the pool of engineers and technicians to meet demand".

The IET's latest survey builds on information from 2006, and shows that although the engineering and technology sector is still growing and recruiting, only 56% of respondents believed they would be able to recruit enough people into engineering and technical roles this year.

Confidence is down - this represents a fall from 65% believing the same in 2006.

Bob Taylor, E.ON UK board member, said: "The results of the survey underline the difficult skills challenge the industry and our company now face".

"We're taking steps to address that immediate need through re-training initiatives and by bringing in trained engineers who have completed apprenticeships with E.ON in Germany".

Bob Taylor continued: "As the research shows, we're not the only company to recruit from overseas and we see this move as a positive way to get the people we need in the field and working on our networks".

"But the industry needs a combination of measures to bridge the skills gap and that's why we continue to fund and commit to the long-term at the same time".

Carson Bradbury, European Director of Cre8Ventures said: "The acute shortage of highly skilled engineers coming out of our universities is damaging our region's long-term ability to compete in the global market".

"The IET report cites that the most important criteria for recruiting skilled staff in the UK is to scale business".

"Nowhere is this truer than within our start-up fabless semiconductor industry, which is now being forced to attract the highly skilled engineers they require from other countries".

"Consequently there is a collective, urgent call to action for government to significantly improve the quality of our STEM teaching staff as well as the overall image of science based subjects in our schools".