New data from APSCo say that the skills shortage has begun to have a discernible negative impact on the engineering contracting community.
APSCo says that demand for umbrella contractors or freelancers with engineering expertise is positively through the roof right now. In fact, year-on-year growth in contract vacancies has hit 22 per cent whilst month-on-month demand growth is increasing by more than 5 per cent.
This would be good news for engineering contractors, but the bare truth of it is that the skills shortage is preventing many of these vacancies from being filled. Not only that but there’s a very real danger that high-profile projects like the incipient Heathrow expansion could end up grinding to a halt because there’s not enough specialist knowledge to get the ball rolling, completely obviating the fact that otherwise a project of this magnitude would be a fantastic source of jobs of all kinds.
It’s more than just the British workforce not having enough skilled engineers to go around, either – the truth is that we’re actually losing more than we’re creating. Many skilled and qualified engineering contractors are outsourcing themselves to other positions throughout the EU. Engineers are poised to leave in droves to find better paying positions outside of the UK, easily jeopardising British engineering as a whole.
So how do we stop this brain drain and entice not only more new engineers to look for work in the UK but to keep the disillusioned ones we have? Well it’s fairly obvious – we need to remain competitive on a global basis whilst also increasing the calibre of our training and education practices here at home. If you ask me this is where the Government has to step up and take on some responsibility, either by providing funding for on-the-job training or offering tax incentives to businesses that develop or expand their apprenticeship programmes. On top of that, if we can’t stop experienced Brits from leaving for more lucrative positions overseas, we need to investigate why these outside jobs are so much more attractive than our own and do our damnedest to sweeten the pot here at home.
I mean,for what it’s worth it’s not exactly rocket science to figure this one out, is it?
