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More engineer graduates needed: Dyson is right

Keith Lewis, managing director of Matchtech, shares his opinion on the engineering skills bank following Sir James Dyson’s recent call for government to do more to boost the number of engineer graduates.

It’s great to see Sir James Dyson call on the government to do more to encourage the next wave of engineers into the industry. We recently spoke to more than 1,000 engineers and found that 78% don’t believe it is doing enough to attract next generation. This is a frightening statistic considering a recent study by EngineeringUK said that by 2020 the industry will need 87,000 new faces with degree-level qualifications each year, almost double the current number coming through.

The UK is the oil and gas capital of Europe and its aerospace sector is one of the largest in the world. Renewables is a fast emerging sector and in need of engineers at all levels. The jobs are there and the industry is thriving – we just have to sell it to the next generation. In recent years we have seen successive Governments paying only lip service to what actually needs to be done and, as a result, other careers, such as IT have emerged as more attractive avenues.

In order to begin to rectify this, the Government needs to start presenting engineering as “an industry of choice”, particularly at a time where the UK youth unemployment rate stands at 23%, in addition to this change must also come from those within the industry itself. Since the start of the academic year we have spoken to and signed up approximately 2,000 students and placed 5,000 in the last decade but no one can do this on their own - the industry and government must to work together to ensure we attract the next generation and do not lose our mantle as ‘world leader’ in engineering, an industry that has been the backbone of the UK economy for many years.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Keith Lewis .