News - Midlands
Engineering
From rags to respect
In the latest of our series of features looking at key issues in the engineering sector, tim chapman reports on efforts to improve its image and attract tomorrow's talent.
One of the most insidious effects of the massive structural changes in the manufacturing sector is the perception that engineering no longer has a future in the UK. As an industrial sector and as a profession, engineering seems to be a resolutely unattractive option. That image of a dying, dirty industry risks being self- fulfilling unless the industry can attract the investment and talent it needs. The West Midlands branch of the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF)is now warning that plans for regeneration may be jeopardised by skill shortages.
Part of the blame can be pinned on the lack of governmental support over the past few decades. "I think there is a perception that has built up over many years that the government doesn't care about manufacturing and the service sector and other sectors are more important," says Nick Brayshaw, chief executive of Wagon, the Warwick-based automotive body structures manufacturer, and chair of the Confederation of British Industry's manufacturing committee. "In very recent times that perception has changed within government, but not yet across the economy. From discussions with government, it's clear there is a role for manufacturing as part of the modern balanced economy - that argument is won. What we now need to do is convince the majority of people, particularly young graduates, that this is where they should be seeking their future careers. We need to make sure manufacturing attracts its fair share of talent."
Wagon operates manufacturing sites across Europe and the US, cultures where engineers are shown greater respect than in the UK. "In Germany, they have always had the syndrome of 'Herr Doktor Ingenieur' who is regarded as a senior member of society, but in the UK we use the term too broadly," Brayshaw notes. "We do need to afford the perception to engineers that they do on the continent. Very probably we need to pay them more too."
There's the linguistic problem that in English, the word "engineer" covers everyone from the man who fixes your washing machine through to PhDs working with the very highest technology. Other languages distinguish the craft from the science - in Germany, for instance, 'Ingenieur' is reserved for those with a university degree, while someone less academically qualified is a 'Techniker'.
Bob Hale, Birmingham-based chairman of the engineering and manufacturing group at RSM Robson Rhodes, agrees that engineers enjoy more respect in other countries. "I can't actually pinpoint why that is, other than I think it's been treated as a second class route to higher education and qualification in the UK," he says. "In the Far East it has been held up as a pinnacle of achievement to become a professional engineer there. Clearly part of the issue in the UK is there has been a massive under- investment in technology over the last 20 years."
Almost half of UK industry has still not taken on board modern techniques such as lean manufacturing, Hale notes. This creates a chicken-and-egg situation of poor competitive performance and poor perception hindering attempts to bring in much-needed investment. "I think by and large there is a reasonable amount of willingness to put more money into the sector, but it has to be led by government initiatives and directives, and in my opinion government is still too far removed from the sector," Hale says. "We need things like greater incentives for investment, and that could be relatively easily achieved by reintroducing first year allowances for plant, and greater encouragement for R&D."
Perhaps the greater problem is in attracting talented graduates and school leavers into the industry - even if engineering companies do invest in the latest technology, it won't do them any good if they can't find anyone to operate it.
"Engineering companies are not the sexiest thing in town," says Geoff Wood-Hill, head of M&A for the engineering sector at Ernst & Young in Birmingham. "One of the fundamental problems is young people don't want to go and work in an engineering business because it has the image of being old-fashioned and oily - what people perceive as being good jobs to go into are in the media or the City. There is a big image problem and you're not going to change that very quickly."
Even high-profile engineers who might serve as an aspirational role model for young people planning their career tend to lose the "engineer" label. James Dyson, for instance, is more often described as an "entrepreneur" or "inventor", while the creative aspects of engineering as demonstrated on TV by the likes of Richard Seymour and Dick Powell are subsumed under the more fashionable "design".
"The future in engineering is not about large scale manufacturing, it's about design," Wood-Hill says. "Any engineering campaign to try and recruit people in the sector should be focused around engineering expertise and design. There's tremendous design flair needed in making any modern products, and there's a chance to be creative in engineering that there isn't in a lot of other businesses."
The demographics of the sector are not encouraging. In the West Midlands, some 36 per cent of employees are over the age of 45, and only 14 per cent under the age of 25. Opportunities do exist, but there is a shortage of suitably skilled individuals to fill them - companies report that three quarters of professional or technical vacancies and two thirds of skilled manual vacancies remained unfilled over the past six months.
The problem is however one of communication rather than image, says Bill Nicholls, director of education and training development at EEF West Midlands. "I think there's too much spoken about the poor image of engineering and manufacturing without any real back-up to the claims. You almost start to create a poor image the more you talk about it," he says.
EEF runs one of the largest apprenticeship programmes in the West Midlands, with vacancies collected in an annual brochure and online. "We find we can attract and have attracted many more applicants than we have posts for," Nicholls says. "But over the last five years we have seen recruitment of advanced modern apprentices decline by about 50 per cent in the sector. We cannot keep going on like that - eventually you just run out of skilled people."
The problem is that engineering companies are not taking on enough apprentices - last year there were just 600 advanced manufacturing apprenticeships on offer, down from 1,200 in 1995. "What we've got to do is help industry recognise that it has to create a demand," Nicholls says. "Last year we just didn't have the demand for young people to go into industries. 600 apprenticeships is just insufficient to meet the long-term needs of industry. That has to be at least double the number, or preferably triple."
The EEF runs a string of initiatives working with schools to promote engineering as a career, from primary level up. "These are the sort of initiatives that will help with the image of the industry in individuals' minds, and also ensure that we get the right young people in the long term," Nicholls says. "We don't need millions any longer, but what we do need are the best talented young people who can cope with the technology of the future. The days have gone when we wanted tens of thousands each year in the region - what we're looking for is two to three thousand."
Recent research by the Manufacturing Foundation, a think-tank based in West Bromwich, found that the perception of engineering as hard, dirty, and low-paid work is established among children by the time they reach secondary school.
"We believe a lot of the problem is ignorance about what manufacturing can offer," says director James Bentley. "One of the jobs school children do fancy is building high performance motorbikes. That job is little different from building low performance washing machines, but the glamour attached to the words mean the children think that's a job they'd like."
Resources such as the Thinktank science centre at Birmingham's Millennium Point are an underused way of encouraging a positive image of industry, Bentley believes. "Manufacturing is really interesting - children love it when they're exposed to it," he says.
Another important tool is to take engineers into schools - especially when they can demonstrate the material rewards of professional engineering. Making school visits an accredited part of training for chartered engineers or specialist advisors could do wonders, Bentley believes. "If that could be seen as being a good thing - and the experience of going into schools is fantastic - then we could see a huge growth in interaction between industry people and education people," he says.
There is already a plethora of schemes encouraging links between industry and education. Inside Manufacturing Enterprise (IME), based at Coventry University and funded by Advantage West Midlands, takes classes of 14 to 16-year-olds on half-day visits into companies displaying best practice.
"It's aimed at inviting them into various companies, to let them have a look round and help dispel these negative images," says project manager Derek Hall. "What we're trying to tackle is the problem with general recruitment where people do not see engineering as a tier one career. It's a fairly firmly held belief and we're trying to dispel some or all of it."
IME also operates a business-to-business programme of visits to help spread best practice. Again, the aim is to break the chicken-and-egg situation of poor image and lack of investment and talent. "What we're trying to do is break the link in some way," Hall says. "If you look around the region there are sectors where we are doing very well. There is an awful lot where we're not doing as well, but there are good examples around in the business community, and what we're trying to do is use that as a stepping stone to get out of the cycle. It is a formidable business challenge."
Many of the larger engineering groups in the region run their own outreach programmes in an attempt to promote the industry and themselves. Rolls-Royce, the engine giant based in Derby, runs a series of initiatives from primary level to universities. "It isn't just about trying to recruit engineers for Rolls-Royce, we're very actively trying to promote the teaching of science, engineering and technology," says head of career development Ken Fulton. "It helps us in the long run with our recruitment because it increases the size of the pool we're fishing in to find talent."
Rolls-Royce also recruits graduates from across Europe. "We deliberately set out to recruit students from Europe into the UK because that's entirely appropriate given the international mix of our clients and partners," says Fulton. "A lot of students from around Europe are very keen to work here - it's held in prestige across the globe. A guy who's studied in Italy would rather qualify as a chartered engineer in the UK because that carries more weight as a qualification than anything they could get in their home country. There are some things about engineering in the UK that are very attractive." Rolls-Royce has the attraction of a highly prestigious brand that employees want to be associated with, but the firm also has a reputation for quality of training and development that is a major drawer for qualified people.
"We found that in preparing young engineers to do the kind of job we need them to do, it's helpful for us to provide structured training and development opportunities," Fulton says. "Whatever the initial perception of engineering, we have a phenomenally high retention of people in their engineering careers." Typically, companies recruiting graduates retain 50 per cent of them after five years - Rolls-Royce boasts a figure of 80 per cent.
"I think we're in a quite fortunate position, we're not completely typical of other engineering employers," Fulton notes. "That's partly our reputation, partly the quality of our training and recruitment, but it's actually to do with the challenge of the job. Engineering is challenging and once people start to do it they tend to stick with it."
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In the latest of our series of features looking at key issues in the engineering sector, tim chapman reports on efforts to improve its image and attract tomorrow's talent.
One of the most insidious effects of the massive structural changes in the manufacturing sector is the perception that engineering no longer has a future in the UK. As an industrial sector and as a profession, engineering seems to be a resolutely unattractive option. That image of a dying, dirty industry risks being self- fulfilling unless the industry can attract the investment and talent it needs. The West Midlands branch of the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF)is now warning that plans for regeneration may be jeopardised by skill shortages.
Part of the blame can be pinned on the lack of governmental support over the past few decades. "I think there is a perception that has built up over many years that the government doesn't care about manufacturing and the service sector and other sectors are more important," says Nick Brayshaw, chief executive of Wagon, the Warwick-based automotive body structures manufacturer, and chair of the Confederation of British Industry's manufacturing committee. "In very recent times that perception has changed within government, but not yet across the economy. From discussions with government, it's clear there is a role for manufacturing as part of the modern balanced economy - that argument is won. What we now need to do is convince the majority of people, particularly young graduates, that this is where they should be seeking their future careers. We need to make sure manufacturing attracts its fair share of talent."
Wagon operates manufacturing sites across Europe and the US, cultures where engineers are shown greater respect than in the UK. "In Germany, they have always had the syndrome of 'Herr Doktor Ingenieur' who is regarded as a senior member of society, but in the UK we use the term too broadly," Brayshaw notes. "We do need to afford the perception to engineers that they do on the continent. Very probably we need to pay them more too."
There's the linguistic problem that in English, the word "engineer" covers everyone from the man who fixes your washing machine through to PhDs working with the very highest technology. Other languages distinguish the craft from the science - in Germany, for instance, 'Ingenieur' is reserved for those with a university degree, while someone less academically qualified is a 'Techniker'.
Bob Hale, Birmingham-based chairman of the engineering and manufacturing group at RSM Robson Rhodes, agrees that engineers enjoy more respect in other countries. "I can't actually pinpoint why that is, other than I think it's been treated as a second class route to higher education and qualification in the UK," he says. "In the Far East it has been held up as a pinnacle of achievement to become a professional engineer there. Clearly part of the issue in the UK is there has been a massive under- investment in technology over the last 20 years."
Almost half of UK industry has still not taken on board modern techniques such as lean manufacturing, Hale notes. This creates a chicken-and-egg situation of poor competitive performance and poor perception hindering attempts to bring in much-needed investment. "I think by and large there is a reasonable amount of willingness to put more money into the sector, but it has to be led by government initiatives and directives, and in my opinion government is still too far removed from the sector," Hale says. "We need things like greater incentives for investment, and that could be relatively easily achieved by reintroducing first year allowances for plant, and greater encouragement for R&D."
Perhaps the greater problem is in attracting talented graduates and school leavers into the industry - even if engineering companies do invest in the latest technology, it won't do them any good if they can't find anyone to operate it.
"Engineering companies are not the sexiest thing in town," says Geoff Wood-Hill, head of M&A for the engineering sector at Ernst & Young in Birmingham. "One of the fundamental problems is young people don't want to go and work in an engineering business because it has the image of being old-fashioned and oily - what people perceive as being good jobs to go into are in the media or the City. There is a big image problem and you're not going to change that very quickly."
Even high-profile engineers who might serve as an aspirational role model for young people planning their career tend to lose the "engineer" label. James Dyson, for instance, is more often described as an "entrepreneur" or "inventor", while the creative aspects of engineering as demonstrated on TV by the likes of Richard Seymour and Dick Powell are subsumed under the more fashionable "design".
"The future in engineering is not about large scale manufacturing, it's about design," Wood-Hill says. "Any engineering campaign to try and recruit people in the sector should be focused around engineering expertise and design. There's tremendous design flair needed in making any modern products, and there's a chance to be creative in engineering that there isn't in a lot of other businesses."
The demographics of the sector are not encouraging. In the West Midlands, some 36 per cent of employees are over the age of 45, and only 14 per cent under the age of 25. Opportunities do exist, but there is a shortage of suitably skilled individuals to fill them - companies report that three quarters of professional or technical vacancies and two thirds of skilled manual vacancies remained unfilled over the past six months.
The problem is however one of communication rather than image, says Bill Nicholls, director of education and training development at EEF West Midlands. "I think there's too much spoken about the poor image of engineering and manufacturing without any real back-up to the claims. You almost start to create a poor image the more you talk about it," he says.
EEF runs one of the largest apprenticeship programmes in the West Midlands, with vacancies collected in an annual brochure and online. "We find we can attract and have attracted many more applicants than we have posts for," Nicholls says. "But over the last five years we have seen recruitment of advanced modern apprentices decline by about 50 per cent in the sector. We cannot keep going on like that - eventually you just run out of skilled people."
The problem is that engineering companies are not taking on enough apprentices - last year there were just 600 advanced manufacturing apprenticeships on offer, down from 1,200 in 1995. "What we've got to do is help industry recognise that it has to create a demand," Nicholls says. "Last year we just didn't have the demand for young people to go into industries. 600 apprenticeships is just insufficient to meet the long-term needs of industry. That has to be at least double the number, or preferably triple."
The EEF runs a string of initiatives working with schools to promote engineering as a career, from primary level up. "These are the sort of initiatives that will help with the image of the industry in individuals' minds, and also ensure that we get the right young people in the long term," Nicholls says. "We don't need millions any longer, but what we do need are the best talented young people who can cope with the technology of the future. The days have gone when we wanted tens of thousands each year in the region - what we're looking for is two to three thousand."
Recent research by the Manufacturing Foundation, a think-tank based in West Bromwich, found that the perception of engineering as hard, dirty, and low-paid work is established among children by the time they reach secondary school.
"We believe a lot of the problem is ignorance about what manufacturing can offer," says director James Bentley. "One of the jobs school children do fancy is building high performance motorbikes. That job is little different from building low performance washing machines, but the glamour attached to the words mean the children think that's a job they'd like."
Resources such as the Thinktank science centre at Birmingham's Millennium Point are an underused way of encouraging a positive image of industry, Bentley believes. "Manufacturing is really interesting - children love it when they're exposed to it," he says.
Another important tool is to take engineers into schools - especially when they can demonstrate the material rewards of professional engineering. Making school visits an accredited part of training for chartered engineers or specialist advisors could do wonders, Bentley believes. "If that could be seen as being a good thing - and the experience of going into schools is fantastic - then we could see a huge growth in interaction between industry people and education people," he says.
There is already a plethora of schemes encouraging links between industry and education. Inside Manufacturing Enterprise (IME), based at Coventry University and funded by Advantage West Midlands, takes classes of 14 to 16-year-olds on half-day visits into companies displaying best practice.
"It's aimed at inviting them into various companies, to let them have a look round and help dispel these negative images," says project manager Derek Hall. "What we're trying to tackle is the problem with general recruitment where people do not see engineering as a tier one career. It's a fairly firmly held belief and we're trying to dispel some or all of it."
IME also operates a business-to-business programme of visits to help spread best practice. Again, the aim is to break the chicken-and-egg situation of poor image and lack of investment and talent. "What we're trying to do is break the link in some way," Hall says. "If you look around the region there are sectors where we are doing very well. There is an awful lot where we're not doing as well, but there are good examples around in the business community, and what we're trying to do is use that as a stepping stone to get out of the cycle. It is a formidable business challenge."
Many of the larger engineering groups in the region run their own outreach programmes in an attempt to promote the industry and themselves. Rolls-Royce, the engine giant based in Derby, runs a series of initiatives from primary level to universities. "It isn't just about trying to recruit engineers for Rolls-Royce, we're very actively trying to promote the teaching of science, engineering and technology," says head of career development Ken Fulton. "It helps us in the long run with our recruitment because it increases the size of the pool we're fishing in to find talent."
Rolls-Royce also recruits graduates from across Europe. "We deliberately set out to recruit students from Europe into the UK because that's entirely appropriate given the international mix of our clients and partners," says Fulton. "A lot of students from around Europe are very keen to work here - it's held in prestige across the globe. A guy who's studied in Italy would rather qualify as a chartered engineer in the UK because that carries more weight as a qualification than anything they could get in their home country. There are some things about engineering in the UK that are very attractive." Rolls-Royce has the attraction of a highly prestigious brand that employees want to be associated with, but the firm also has a reputation for quality of training and development that is a major drawer for qualified people.
"We found that in preparing young engineers to do the kind of job we need them to do, it's helpful for us to provide structured training and development opportunities," Fulton says. "Whatever the initial perception of engineering, we have a phenomenally high retention of people in their engineering careers." Typically, companies recruiting graduates retain 50 per cent of them after five years - Rolls-Royce boasts a figure of 80 per cent.
"I think we're in a quite fortunate position, we're not completely typical of other engineering employers," Fulton notes. "That's partly our reputation, partly the quality of our training and recruitment, but it's actually to do with the challenge of the job. Engineering is challenging and once people start to do it they tend to stick with it."
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every month.
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