Engineering news
Employees in the engineering industry are more likely to change jobs frequently to progress their careers than people in other professions, and there are “acute” skills shortages in the automotive sector. These are the conclusions of research conducted by recruitment firm Kelly.
Most engineers surveyed said that, to hone their skills and grow their careers, changing employers was more important than remaining with their existing one. More than two thirds of engineering employees considered gaining experience with multiple employers to be a key asset.
Dominic Graham, director of Kelly Scientific and Engineering Resources, said that the broader an engineer's skills base the more attractive they were to an employer. “If you become very specialised in a particular area it makes you valuable to the business, but it makes you less transferable elsewhere,” he said.
“We now find companies who want staff with exposure to different areas such as both mechanical and electrical engineering. They don't necessarily want engineers to work in both – but they don't want people who work in isolation, either.
“We've done work with one company that wanted mechanical engineers with an awareness of purer science.”
Graham said that good engineers were enjoying strong prospects in the automotive sector. “Automotive is booming and at the moment there are acute skills shortages. They are struggling.
“One of the areas we are focusing on is design engineers, particularly with expertise in hybrid technology. Those people are like gold-dust – if you get one, you don't wait long to put them in front of a client.”
The Kelly research came in the wake of a survey by manufacturers' organisation the EEF and recruitment consultancy JAM which found that salary freezes were on the increase in manufacturing.
This follows growing uncertainty about the economic outlook and the medium-term prospects for demand. According to the survey, in the three months to the end of August, one in seven companies had frozen pay. This compares to one in nine firms in the three months to the end of June.
In addition to pay freezes, more companies were agreeing lower settlements, with one third of settlements below 2% and four fifths below 3%. The average pay settlement in the three months to the end of August was 2.4%, a slight fall from the previous survey's 2.5%.
John Morris, chief executive of JAM Recruitment, said: “With skills shortages acute in many sectors, candidates are alive to the fact that their expertise is in demand. This could trip-up some businesses in the future if they’re not prepared to try and match these expectations with pay increases.”
Nearly two thirds of the engineers surveyed by Kelly said that they do not feel their current employer is realising their full potential. Half of those surveyed said they do not believe that they will be able to progress their career in the next year at their current organisation.