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?

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.