Apprentices will be key to addressing the country’s skills gap in engineering, the transport secretary has said.
Announcing that 2018 has been dubbed the “Year of Engineering” to address the skills shortage in the sector, Chris Grayling told Tes: “We need lots of apprentices, we need graduates, we need people retraining as engineers.”
Speaking at the Skills Show in Birmingham today, he added that the engineering campaign, due to launch in January, would be “a national marketing exercise for engineering to get young people to think about this who might not necessarily do so”.
This was needed because of “the fact that we are doing so much in this country at the moment, from the HS2 [railway line], to the new technology you see in [the Skills Show], to the digital revolution, and the arrival of robotics”, he added. “We need tens of thousands of new engineers, and this is about getting the message out to them. Otherwise we will not be able to take advantage of the potential.”
Also at the Skills Show, apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton told Tes: “We want engineering at every level. Progression is really important. This is how we drive social mobility in this country. This is about giving young people the option.”
She went on to tell Tes that the fact apprentices could move on from level 2 to 3, 4 and 5 meant apprenticeships were a “brilliant opportunity”, particularly for children for whom school “did not work out”: “They are earning while they are learning, doing better than their peers often, but also, all the learning starts to make sense. You understand exactly what people have been trying to tell you in school.”
Engineering shortfall
Ms Milton added that it was important the “Year of Engineering” encouraged more girls to go into engineering. “Engineering has some of our most highly paid jobs. We have a gender pay gap in this country. If we get more women into engineering, that will reduce that gap.”
According to the government, the UK faces an estimated shortfall of 20,000 engineering graduates a year, with half of companies in the sector saying the shortage is having a significant impact on productivity and growth.
Today the government pledged to offer a million “direct and inspiring” experiences of engineering to young people throughout the year.
Delivered in partnership with a diverse range of partners, activities will include large-sale outreach programmes, a children’s book on engineering from publisher Usborne and behind-the-scenes tours for families.
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