What skills crisis?

Abstract

Thousands more young engineers are to be offered the chance to work in the UK. The Government wants to focus on the contribution foreign nationals can make to filling skills gaps in areas like engineering. Few dispute the need to encourage highly skilled people with specific experience to boost the economy. Less well publicised, however, was a parallel initiative that could see a big increase in the number of young people looking for jobs in engineering. There is a real demand in sectors such as research and development and financial services for maths, science and engineering specialists. We hope that this scheme will encourage overseas students to study in the UK and following graduation be a real asset in the workplace. But is there really a serious shortage of this sort of graduate, and what will be the impact of such a large number of people joining the ranks of UK nationals chasing jobs? These questions are discussed in this article.