If a depressingly wet UK summer makes the idea of working overseas an even more attractive proposition, then look no further than Wiltshire's Swindon-based Dialog Semiconductor.

As the firm's website suggests, the power management, audio and display driver, and automotive technology specialist is currently looking to fill vacancies at "centres in Germany, UK, Austria and Japan". All candidates "must be willing to undertake international travel".

Dialog's worldwide HR director, Rachel Dainton, notes that Dialog's need for mixed signal skills 'especially skill gaps in audio' resulted in the successful set-up and recruitment for the firm's newest R&D centre in Edinburgh this year. Recruitment there has gone well, she says, though "it's always tough to get mixed signal and analogue skills".

Currently other shortfalls are for digital and layout engineers. "There are also vacancies for marketing managers," Dainton says, "but these tend to be easier to fill than engineering roles."

Like all blue chip companies, Dialog works with universities to get graduates and students, and these need an in-house coach or mentor so the firm has permanently hired a student who previously did temporary holiday work.

Dainton also says that women are beginning to come into the engineering workplace. Dialog has two women design engineers and three layout engineers in Swindon. "Ten years ago, we would only have had one or two in layout. In Germany, Austria and Japan, we have women in design, layout and in QA engineering."

At the other end of the business scale, Swindon is also home to Air Semiconductor, the fabless start-up founded by David Tester and Stephen Graham with the idea of developing "a new semiconductor, or micro-electronic component for mobile phones".

Stephen Graham, v-p marketing, says the company has recruited nine staff, half from Swindon, but some commuting from Bristol and Reading.

"We're looking for embedded software engineers, digital IC and systems, and a programme manager and we're not short of good candidates. It's a competitive area, with Swindon a catchment for the M4 corridor," says Graham. The hunt is still on for another 20 staff, and if enough are sourced from Cambridge then Air is not averse to setting up an office there.

Wireless skill set requirements spread deeper into the West at Bristol-based Icera. With its DPX processor, cellular broadband and adaptive wireless, its website lists 14 jobs from field trial validation through driver, applications and protocol stack engineers.

The Cambridge office wants a protocol stack development engineer, a communication systems architect and tool developers. At Sophia Antipolis, France, some 11 vacancies include software configuration and development engineers, as well as a host embedded developer.

Wales

The South West's geography has always included Wales, though with the £5.10 toll over the Severn Bridge, relocation rather than commuting would be the order of the day for Swindon and Bristol-based companies.

IQE's Chris Meadows says recruiting in the past 18 months for Cardiff plants has been limited. "The boom and bust cycles in our industry saw the highly qualified leave and pick up jobs in other fields. At technician level many moved into retail jobs where lower pay rates can be offset by overtime. Once they leave, they don't return."

In Cardiff, IQE is looking for a team leader, manufacturing support, process and RF test engineers, and operator/technicians.

But according to Dr Chris Young, CEO of the Welsh Electronic Forum, it is not all gloom and doom.

"Ten years ago, global, high volume consumer electronics with its high public profile effectively concealed an excellent underclass of stable, specialist, niche companies, who looked for very different skill sets from those needed by high volume manufacturers," says Young. "The loss of mass manufacturing has left behind stable electronics companies [300 belonging to the Forum]."

Admitting that companies often recruit by 'word of mouth', she adds that Sony and Panasonic - employing more than 100 in its R&D facilities - both remain in the region as high value added companies, and akin to the smaller niche employers, are always looking for high level, experienced electronics staff.

True enough, go to the Forum's website and you will find an electronic and control and instrumentation engineer wanted in Swansea; a process engineer in Newport; Nortech Control Systems is hunting for a production manager and a product support engineer in Cwmbran. There is still a welcome for electronics engineers in the Valleys.