Industry surveys have indicated time and again that the engineering sector is facing a skills crunch, and this includes a shortage of technicians. Technicians are vital in various sectors, from energy, defence and automotive to education, communications and healthcare. A recent UK Commission for Employment and Skills Employer Skills report found that the science, research, engineering and technology professional sectors had the highest ratio of skills-shortage vacancies of 25 occupational groups, and that employers continue to face significant challenges in addressing an annual shortfall of 69,000 vacancies.
In 2014, the engineering sectors contributed an estimated £455.6 billion to GDP – 27.1% of the £1,683 billion total GDP for the UK – and this amount will increase to an estimated £608.1 billion by 2022, according to the Engineering UK Report 2016. In the same year, the industry employed 5,529,000 people, with at least two-thirds of workers practising as engineers and technicians, the report showed. Around 70,000 qualified technicians are required each year to meet forecast demand, it’s estimated.
Yet productivity is still being affected by the skills deficit and a lack of technicians, companies report. This is where the Gatsby Charitable Foundation has decided to step in. The charity has launched a campaign that it hopes will inspire talented young people to join the technician workforce. This process, it says, begins with society understanding and valuing the contributions that technicians make to the economy.
The multi-channel campaign, Technicians Make it Happen, started in April with the launch of a multimedia exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. The organisation partnered with photographer Paul Worpole to show technicians in their day-to-day work. Part of the aim is to challenge the stereotypical portrayal of technicians as hard-hat-wearing or IT Crowd-type operatives.
The campaign has two distinct objectives: to celebrate technicians and raise perceptions and understanding of the vital work they do; and to inspire young people with a talent for Stem subjects to pursue careers as technicians. A 360° virtual-reality video of the exhibition will also tour the country.
One of the people shown in the campaign works for a space research organisation. Liam Mundy, a facility electrical technician at RAL Space, describes what he does. “My job is to support the facilities that are in place, to keep them running and up to the required standard for the test campaigns. And my role also requires me to support the build phase in the new test chambers – the 5m-diameter space test chamber suite – mechanically installing the physical components inside the chamber and electrically wiring and testing the new control systems to ensure they meet the required standard.”
Mundy’s interest in technology sprouted in his adolescence, leading him to study electronics, product design and ICT for his GCSEs. After working for a local engineering machine shop and gaining a broad foundation of engineering knowledge, he obtained a level 3 National Diploma and went on to work for two engineering companies before joining RAL Space as an electrical technician for the assembly integration verification group.
Obstacles to overcome
While he pursued a direct path into his area of work, the route is not as clear-cut for many others. Early specialisation places students into the arts or sciences prematurely, and prevents many from considering engineering study or training before they’ve encountered it, experts argue. Another obstacle is the perception – or, perhaps, misunderstanding – that technical vocations are meant for school failures or the ‘unintelligent’. Furthermore, it seems that many are simply not aware of the opportunities open to them on apprenticeships, and instead are encouraged to pursue an undergraduate degree.
Hydram Sheet Metalwork apprentice Sophy Bage, who is captured in the campaign in her welding element, believes that schools urge their pupils to follow an academic route, and that they lack proper career guidance. “At school, I had careers guidance once, and I didn’t know what an apprentice was until I left.” This lack of guidance can also apply when students go to their parents for advice, she says. “I was told ‘not to work in a factory’. Yet the career routes available are superb in the industry.”
Bage spent her first year experiencing every area of the business, and then specialised in welding in the second year before accepting an offer for a full-time position in the welding department. She is now undertaking a trial with the engineering design team to further her career at the company. She is also studying towards an HNC in mechanical engineering, and is aiming to start a degree in September.
With many companies facing skills shortages, Hydram is one of the businesses that has taken the crisis into its own hands and not waited for a government solution. “We have identified a skills gap in the next few years, and we needed to start trying to minimise the impact of that by recruiting and training high-calibre apprentices to maintain the growth of the business,” says training manager Neil Mawson.
The company runs a two-year programme that leads to level 2 NVQ qualifications in CNC fabrication, welding and CAD design, and an EAL Diploma in engineering technology. Hydram is also an EAL and IOSH training centre, and can deliver a range of qualifications.
Bespoke training
“The internal programme has allowed Hydram to develop bespoke training – it covers every facet of the business, and is aimed to give our learners not only a general overview into the engineering sector, but also a dedicated and targeted education into the sheet-metal subcontract industry, and especially the ‘Hydram way’,” says Mawson.
The scheme was awarded IMechE accreditation in December 2014. Hydram’s goal is to groom 10% of its workforce from the apprenticeship programme.
Apprenticeships have much to offer young people, says Peter Finegold, head of education and skills at the IMechE. “Apprenticeships are often more affordable than completing a university degree and offer people the opportunity to focus on practical skills that are typically more transferable to the workplace than pure academic study,” he says.
He calls for more political support for such schemes. “Politicians need to hold their nerve to ensure that apprenticeships, in particular, remain rigorous, long-term and clear to understand, and resist becoming conflated with low-level, short-term training, in meeting the government’s own targets,” he says.
The institution has called for a rethink of engineering education, and for pupils to be taught about engineering and the manufactured world as part of existing lessons from primary level upwards, and for a broad curriculum to be maintained until 18.
Recommendations from the IMechE’s Social Mobility and the Engineering Profession policy statement call for “structured careers advice, promoting more industry placements and for government to explore options for changing the structure of post-16 education” that place equal weight on academic and technical and professional routes.
Finegold says: “We live in an increasingly technological age, where the application of knowledge is at least as highly valued as its acquisition. Yet our schools and pupils are still largely measured on their success in being able to rehearse a canon of academic knowledge largely unchanged from before the Industrial Revolution. It may not be sufficient to hope that better role models and more positive depictions of apprenticeships alone will achieve success.”
Choosing an apprenticeship need not mean a lack of prospects, says Bage. “People in general see technicians as being stuck in a low-paid job with no future. As a technician, I have a future within engineering, and aim to make the most of it,” she says.
As Technicians Make it Happen applauds technicians and the work they do, its second objective, to inspire young people with a talent for Stem to pursue technician careers, provides a clear and imperative agenda for the engineering community. But this agenda requires a collective effort from education, industry and professionals. While the Gatsby Foundation encourages more professional bodies and organisations to get behind the campaign to spread the message, schools and colleges need to do their part to reflect the reality of working in modern, highly technical industries.
Did you know? Careers advice lacking
Just two in five of all Stem teachers felt confident giving advice on engineering careers, according to an Engineers and Engineering Brand Monitor report. The government announced a £67 million package in December 2014 that will go towards programmes to retrain 15,000 existing teachers and recruit an extra 2,500 maths and physics teachers.