Pipe dream
How can we remedy the shortfall of UK engineers?A report published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has concluded that engineering companies in the UK have a shortfall of 55,000 skilled workers per year, a figure that leads to a loss of an estimated £27 billion per year to the UK economy.
Miranda Davies, Director of Emerging Talent at Thales recommends that action be taken to help “young people understand our industry better, to see the range of careers available and to be excited by where engineering could take them.”
EngineeringUK called for the following milestones to be reached in order to prevent the shortfall:
- A doubling of pupils studying GCSE physics
- A two-fold increase in Advanced Apprenticeship achievements
- A doubling of engineering graduates
- Provision of better careers information and inspiration
Addressing a shortfall that large they should probably call for a doubling of average salary, doubling of holiday time, and a lifetime’s supply of graph paper for all engineering graduates while they’re at it.
It seems that despite this shortfall cropping up in the news every year, engineering as a field has failed to engineer (a-ha) a solution to the issue. There are a number of disparate projects around the country designed to cultivate uptake of engineering (e.g. Tomorrow’s Engineers). However, there hasn’t been much in the way of progress if these yearly doom and gloom forecasts are anything to go by.
So what’s the problem? Some people say the shortfall is overstated. Some say salaries are not attractive enough, or there is little scope for progression. Some say women are locked out from the profession by endemic sexism. Everybody else says that whippersnappers these days just don’t have the spit and vinegar to hack it at ‘real’ jobs like engineering.
Bigging up
In response, attempts to tempt engineering talent focus on appealing to girls, bigging up salary and career opportunities, and waxing lyrical about the cool things you could be working on. If kids or teenagers don’t understand the value of civic pride and the satisfaction in a hard day’s work, they think, they will perhaps understand: space! lasers! excitement!
In some ways these approaches are not mistaken. Attempting to make the field inclusive to women could in theory achieve the pipe dream of doubling engineering uptake (only 7% of engineers are women). The UK is the worst country in the whole of Europe in terms of gender balance in the field, and there is also a very large pay gap compared to other professions.
Alternatively, stopping the vast attrition of STEM and engineering graduates to other jobs could cover the shortfall. Of course, engineering will probably never be able to match the salary offerings of big investment banks, but there is always room to make it more competitive. To boot, some of the blame for the disparity between the number that graduate and the number that work in the field also lies with employers, who have long been accused of being inflexible in their employment methodology and requirements. But much of it is inevitable: not everybody will work their degree subject in the end.
We have also seen a cultural shift away from mechanics and towards softer skills like software engineering. Oil covered rags and monkey wrenches look pretty retrograde in comparison. The prescribed solution is to make engineering look exciting to kids. It seems to have been very effective at inducing high uptake of engineering at a degree level. UCAS statistics show that Computer Science and Engineering have been the fastest growing degree subjects for several years. However, at the end of their notoriously tough degree in their early 20s they are not the gullible teenagers that went in. Is it any wonder that many might be disaffected by the contrast between the promises and reality?
They know that only a special few ever get to touch a spaceship or invent something cool. They know that they will probably be planning motorway flyovers and bypasses, or designing a wheat threshing machine with 3% less wastage.
“You could be famous!” claims Tomorrow’s Engineers, giving the example of the Wright Brothers. Truly, these are highly current examples of engineers for kids to look up to.
Exciting leads to exiting
So what went wrong here in the UK? The answer is – in your best Don Corleone impression, please – respect. Take Italy, for example, where engineers get an honorific. Just like Doctor Roberts, you get Engineer Valentino.
Or Germany, where an engineering course takes seven years, the same as doing a medical degree. In the UK, you can be qualified in just three years. The graduate falloff in these countries is a fraction of what it is in the UK.
When a person says that they are an engineer, your mind often translates that into ‘boring’. So there’s been a mad dash to bring the sexy back to Engineering. But if you think about it, does anybody consider law or medicine to be exciting? Oh you’re an expert in maritime law? Oh you’re the world-leading authority on the pancreas? Tell me more!
Perhaps pretending engineering is something that it is not isn’t the best approach. Perversely, focusing on the logical and rational benefits of an engineering degree, on top of extending how long the degree is, may serve to staunch some of the falloff. Uptake of the degree would likely fall, but the end result is better qualified engineers, more likely dedicated to the idea of becoming an engineer, on top of being better qualified or specialised for employers. Everybody wins.
If that wouldn’t work, there’s always Plan B – uniforms. Everybody respects a uniform – fireman, doctor, police – perhaps it’s time engineers had a makeover. Something with a big cape and boots.
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