September 2019

52 n SKILLS SHORTAGE September 2019 www.drivesncontrols.com Motivating tomorrow’s engineers H istorically, many of the UK’s skilled engineers came via the apprenticeship route. School-leavers were encouraged to secure apprenticeships in a wide range of engineering disciplines and, indeed, many were following a family tradition of joining the same firm and training in the same role as previous generations. This was considered a valued and respected career path. For a small percentage of those with higher academic achievements, university was the alternative, attaining a degree before entering the world of manufacturing. With a strong manufacturing sector, which at the time was highly labour-intensive, this balance of manual skills and degree-level education worked well. However, as our manufacturing base started to decline, the vast majority of companies cut back or even ended their apprenticeship programmes. At around the same time, the Engineering Industrial Training Board (EITB), which had offered partially-funded first-year engineering training, ceased to exist, further restricting the opportunities for engineering apprenticeships. As manufacturing of all types continued to decline or move offshore, the UK’s skills base contracted still further, with far fewer young engineers available to replace those retiring or leaving the industry. Fast forward to today, and we see the consequences of these past policies and events. Almost all school-leavers are now actively encouraged to enter further education, and then to move on to university to obtain degree-level qualifications. Statistics from the House of Commons Library show that participation in higher education has increased from around 3.4% in the 1950s, to almost 50% today. Looking at these figures, there is little doubt that university education has now become an industry in itself, with statistics from Universities UK showing that the sector generated a total income of £35.7bn in 2016-2017. In principle, it is hard to argue with the concept of a university education, because individuals should be encouraged to develop. However, we now have vast numbers of graduates, many with significant amounts of debt, who struggle to find employment opportunities that match their degree qualifications. In part, this is due to many degrees having little or no vocational relevance and, in part, because there are simply not enough graduate-level jobs in the economy for the number of students completing their courses. Within this scenario, interest in – and, importantly, respect for – careers in engineering has declined in the UK over the past few years. So, even among the increasing numbers of degree-educated individuals, there are still too few looking to work in engineering. You could also argue that even of those who do, many are not suitably educated for the roles that manufacturing is struggling to fill. We cannot get away from the fact that we need a huge number of bright, practically trained and enthusiastic people to sustain our manufacturing industry. Our educational systemmust ensure that the profile and status of vocational courses and engineering apprenticeships is once again raised to a level where they are seen as respected and valued opportunities – not a second-best option for those who do not wish to go to university or who, perhaps, do not have suitable academic The lack of suitably qualified and skilled engineers in the UK is threatening growth in manufacturing, improvements in productivity, and the implementation of automation and robotics technologies. For a nation with an impressive engineering heritage, we have, in recent times, failed to invest in developing the diverse engineering skills that we need to support our manufacturing base. William Bourn, UK sales manager for Güdel UK, explores the reasons and considers the steps needed to change the current mindset and encourage more students to consider becoming tomorrow’s engineers. “The practical skills that we need urgently are developed through apprenticeships and supported by further education colleges. To succeed, there needs to be a reversal of the under- funding for these establishments.”