Experienced electronics designers and managers are a precious
resource in the UK, which can only be good news for engineers
looking to progress their careers this year.
A skills survey by the IET (Institution of Engineering and
Technology) has found more than 70 per cent of engineering and
technology companies in the UK are struggling to recruit
experienced or mid career level staff.
Significantly, the annual skills survey shows that leadership is
the skill most lacking among experienced staff, with a quarter of
respondents stating that typical recruits did not meet their
expectations.
The survey of 500 businesses reveals that, although the engineering
and technology sector is still growing and recruiting, only 56 per
cent of respondents believe they will be able to recruit enough
people into engineering and technical roles this year. This
represents a fall from 65 per cent in the 2006 survey.
When asked about the reasons for difficulty in recruiting suitable
candidates in the engineering and technology sector over the next
four years, 35 per cent cite shortages with specific skills,
closely followed by, lack of suitably qualified candidates (29 per
cent) and candidates lacking the right experience (20.3 per
cent).
Only 14.5 per cent say that being unable to offer a sufficient
salary will be a factor in recruiting staff in four years
time.
Many companies claim they now provide additional training with
technical, mentoring, coaching, and communication and leadership
skills being the top needs addressed.
According to Robin McGill, chief executive of the IET, companies
should be investing more in the continued professional development
of their staff to ensure they retain and attract new recruits and
successfully tackle the shortage of candidates at mid career
level.
The survey also shows that recruitment of women within the industry
has remained static. Just seven per cent of the engineering and
technology workforce are women.
“The IET report cites that the most important criteria for
recruiting skilled staff in the UK is to scale business,” comments
Carson Bradbury, European director of Cre8Ventures, a
microelectronics start-up support company run by Mentor
Graphics.
“Nowhere is this truer than within our start-up fabless
semiconductor industry, which is now being forced to attract the
highly skilled engineers they require from other countries.”
Of those companies recruiting from abroad, 46 per cent were
recruited from the EU.
The IET is directly addressing the skills issue by offering
financial awards, totalling almost £1m, to engineering students to
encourage a greater take up of engineering and technology courses
at university.
The scholarships and bursaries are offered as part of the IET’s
Ambition awards programme, which already boasts the Power Academy
which was created to address the shortage of power engineers in the
UK.
The undergraduate awards include ‘scholarships for engineering
excellence’, which are available to students starting an IET
accredited degree course.