COVER STORY OCTOBER 2019
Twelve
new Institutes of
Technology form a
national network of
STEM excellence
(Level 6+) to strengthen routes into higher levels
of technical education, as well as directly into
employment.”
The network of 12 Institutes of Technology
covers all four corners of England, from Durham
to Dagenham (see map, p19). All have been
chosen for a number of reasons, including
strong engagement with employers. “We expect
employers to be at the heart of an Institute
of Technology’s governance, to ensure the
institution can focus on delivering a skilled
workforce ready for employment both now
and in the future,” says the government. “This
should extend to the design and delivery of the
curriculum, resulting in direct links between
teaching, learning and industry needs and a
learning off er that is agile and responsive to
employer needs.”
This is a promising start – a lack of close
collaboration with employers was highlighted
as a major drawback with the Apprenticeship
Levy, and was highlighted in Make UK’s
recommendations for the success of T-Levels.
The institute in Durham, for instance, will
involve local colleges, Newcastle University and
Nissan’s plant in Sunderland.
Time for support
For too long, skills and, by extension, the future of
the manufacturing industry have been neglected.
Failed policies such as the Apprenticeship Levy
have eroded business confi dence in the ability of
government to help make a diff erence. Given the
right level of support, and a fair windm T-Levels
and the Institutes of Technology may go some
way to undoing years of mismanagement.
Whatever the future of technical education
in the UK has in store, it can’t come soon
enough. The skills ‘gap’ is fast becoming a
yawning chasm, and one that the industry is at
risk of falling into. People are manufacturing’s
biggest asset. Without them, factories would
grind to a halt, and ensuring that the next
generation is primed and ready to go should
be a key consideration for industry, trade bodies
and the government.
Plugging the leaky talent pipeline at the National Manufacturing Conference
The skills gaps in the manufacturing sector are entrenched,
well-documented and seemingly intractable. Equally, they
shouldn’t be underestimated. After endless chops and changes
in government policy – an Apprenticeship Levy, new grading
for GCSEs, T-Levels as an alternative to A-levels to name but
a few, little seems to have changed. Our sector is still short of
59,000 engineering graduates and technicians each year, despite
having close to 130,000 apprenticeship starts across the UK in
academic year 2015/16 – a number which has been falling since
the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced. Simply tapping into
the same talent pools has failed to fi ll the skills gaps historically
and is not going to produce the talents workers needed now.
Manufacturers increasingly need to think outside the box and for
new ways to fi nd the people and skills which seem so elusive.
Make UK’s National Manufacturing Conference on 25 February
2020 will lay the platform for manufacturers to do just this.
Around 80% of the people that UK manufacturers need to train
are already in the workforce. Inventively doing more with the
current stock of skills, as well as adding to the stock, is key to
bridging skills gaps, particularly at a time when the numbers of
EU workers coming to the UK is tailing o – growing your own
talent will become more important than ever. For a variety of
reasons, we will all be working longer, and retaining workers
longer, and adding to their skills, is another key component that
the manufacturing conference will unpick.
Finally, with just 8% of young apprentices being girls, and
only 16% of engineering places at university being fi lled by
women, there is a need to show o the best that manufacturing
careers can o er to everyone – from working with exciting new
technology, to creative design roles, our sector o ers fl exible
and rewarding opportunities that are often more associated with
IT and the creative industries. The conference will provide
insight on where and how to look for talent that may already
be right in front of UK manufacturers.
Make UK will be holding workshops on Tackling the Talent
Pipeline at the National Manufacturing Conference in London.
Key take-aways from the event will be:
Finding untapped labour markets.
Getting more skilled workers for the same – or less –
amount of e ort.
Rebooting the skills of your mid career workers.
Regulating retirement by tackling the tricky questions and
transferring knowledge
Tickets can be purchased at
www.manufacturingconference.co.uk
20 www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
At Work, taken by Steve Morgan at EDM Ltd in Manchester. Highly Commended in the Professional category of the EEF Photography Competition 2017
/www.manufacturingconference.co.uk
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk