With all of the economic and geopolitical headwinds, what should governments, businesses, and educational institutions be doing to address the engineering skills shortage? 

Taking healthcare as an example, in the UK the National Health Service has a target to be Net Zero (for directly controllable emissions) by 2040 - what are the incentives, regulations and skill sets we need to achieve this?

One possible solution to the skill shortage is to increase the provision of engineering education in schools. For instance, some schools have introduced Engineering as an optional subject for students in Year 10 and 11, and the new T-levels offer a vocational pathway for engineering students. These initiatives aim to expose students to engineering concepts and applications from an early stage, and to integrate them with other subjects, such as science, maths, design, and technology. By doing so, they hope to enhance the students’ awareness, interest, and confidence in engineering, and to encourage them to pursue engineering careers.

It is no easy feat, and it has got to be a combined effort – businesses and organisations should ensure they are aware of the latest technologies and support their workforce to continue to upskill in areas that will support net-zero. Incentives can and should also come from government - such as support for skills training. For example, establishing a small pot of funding that could be made available for training in new and cutting-edge technologies. Making small changes to the apprenticeship levy to allow unused funds to be repurposed would help address this. Industry confidence in the UK education pipeline was comparatively low in our international survey – what businesses have said they want to see is more industry placement and industry targeted projects. We can also ensure that sustainability is embedded in engineering courses and apprenticeships so that new technologies are focussed on meeting net zero targets.

There is huge potential for engineering and technological innovations to help us become a more sustainable world but we need to be agile, constantly questioning, assessing, and improving to make best use of it.

Hi, this is a very valid question. Looking at the results from the IET’s International Green Skills Survey, the answer is that we have some of the skills needed. Respondents often identified specialist environmental or sustainability skills as missing within their organisations, but also softer skills such as whole systems thinking, agile mindsets and complex problem solving, which were seen as key skills in the sustainability mix. At country level, it was most thought that we have the skills needed in areas of existing technologies (such as renewable energy and construction), but less so for more nascent areas such as nuclear and sustainable aviation.

To ready the workforce, the IET recommends greater collaboration between academia and industry, to better prepare entrants to the workforce with these missing skills so that they can hit the ground running. Government can also provide support through a flexible skills environment that allows businesses to rapidly identify skill gaps and upskill employees to meet the challenges they face.

The scope is both national and global. Each country will face individual challenges and from the survey, it looks like the UK has some catching up to do! It was interesting in the survey to see where there were similarities and differences between different countries’ needs. But for such a global challenge, nothing can be achieved in isolation. Countries need to work together and learn from each other in order to make the biggest impact. Conferences like COP are an important part of this, and it is the discussions between business leaders, outside of the more publicised political outcomes that have given me hope from these events.

A question back – where do you see PEIs such as the IET playing a role here? Is it in the skills domain? Facilitating discussions between industry and academia? Working with government? International coordination? Or something else entirely?

I think that the IET has an ongoing role in making engineering an attractive, stimulating, and fulfilling profession to pursue from a young age. We want children to grow up aspiring to be engineers who can contribute to the environmental sustainability of the planet like super heroes. The issue in the UK is that children are more interested in becoming celebrities, YouTube stars, etc and why wouldn’t they ? Just look at the content that is available to children on these platforms more easterly. They promote more ambitious goals such as becoming astronauts, scientists, and even engineers.

Do we think employers understand what skills they are missing? And is it a common skills gap or very sub-sector dependent? 
I suspect we would get many different answers, but that’s the conversation we need to have to then inform government policy, employers, universities, colleges, schools and parents. 
Let’s not forget the role apprenticeships can play in boosting the skills gap by providing capacity and focussed capability. 

Really good point, one key skill is to be aware of the technological options available and how they can be applied in different ways – take digital twins for example, only 5% of employers in the UK saw this as being important for reaching net zero, which means they are least likely to recognise it as a priority across the 10 countries surveyed. It is unclear how aware employers are about the potential of this technology though, so maybe that is something to survey in future. I'd also be keen to hear examples of how it is used in different sectors.

Another example that is much broader might be systems thinking, which most employers think that engineers should have as a core skill.

What do you think is the most important thing government can do to plug skills gaps?

In terms of the role of government around skills it’s important to achieve stability and continuity in terms of the direction of travel. Skills acquisition is not an overnight activity, having a longer term vision that is consistent from government to government around the need for engineering skills is key. 
But as we know from the last few years of skills surveys the need for skills is key for employers. Improved digital skills, access to net zero and sustainability skills. this leaves lots to do around skills development and it’s good to see that message is now landing with government. 
Stability during this UK election year and whatever comes afterwards is critical to delivering the skills gaps that employer's are crying out for. 

Which countries have the most effective green skills policies and programmes already in place that the UK can learn from ? Or are we the pioneers ?

I can't say for sure which are leaders, but from our international skills survey there is a distinct concern about the lack of skills with fewer than 5% of employers across 8 countries saying they have skills to be resilient to climate change. Most employers surveyed in each country believe that new building and construction materials (such as solar panels) are the most important technology to help their country meet its net zero targets, although the area that they are most likely to think that their country has enough skills in is renewable energy generation. 

The UK has committed to Net Zero through legislation and there will be a range of sustainable skills required to hit deliver net zero technology e.g. 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028. Due to the significant need to retrofit to ensure energy efficiency in UK homes – this is an area where the UK needs to reskill.