Institution response to the Migration Advisory Committee's recommendation on the Shortage Occupation List

Peter Finegold, Head of Education and Skills comments on the Migration Advisory Committee's recommendation on the Shortage Occupation List.

"We are pleased that the Migration Advisory Committee is recommending adding mechanical engineering to the Shortage Occupation List. Despite contributing £1.23 trillion to the UK’s total turnover, the engineering industry retains a persistent skills shortage. The report highlights how every £1 generated by the engineering sector yields a further £1.45 GVA and that for every one person employed by the engineering sector, a further 1.7 jobs are created further down the supply chain.

"There is an undoubted mismatch between the value and opportunities in engineering, and recruitment and retention. Not only is the sector disproportionately male and not ethnically diverse, it is also ageing with the bulk of the baby boomer engineering population reaching retirement at the same time as an expansion in engineering and other related technologies. The skills and talents of engineers are in demand elsewhere – notably in the financial sector.

"There is a widely acknowledged challenge in promoting and recruiting young people to consider engineering. The causes include the fact that since most engineering is business-to-business, unless a young person has close relatives in the sector or lives in an area with an engineering heritage, they are unlikely to know what it is and the opportunities it presents.  To counter this, 2018 was deemed as the Year of Engineering - a government-led initiative to promote the diversity and opportunity in a technology-driven future economy.

"The Institution of Mechanical Engineers has been at the forefront of activity and thought-leadership to explore ways in which the profile of engineering should be raised in mainstream education – including advocating a strong properly funded careers programme in our schools, and greater focus on developing the generic skills employed by engineering through authentic learning experiences.

"Given that 90% of UK engineers are male, and tend to come from a relatively narrow social background the sector must do more to challenge and change the culture, retain the relatively high number of women engineers who leave the profession in early career and encourage more people who do not fit the engineering archetype to join and then remain in the profession.”