Our industry needs you!

According to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), there is a real shortage of engineering skills. The association underlines this fact that, with more career choices to choose from, people tend to consider cool industries over engineering. The challenge is to ensure that aerospace engineering is seen as a cool industry too.

Hosting the panel session, The Performance Review Institute's (PRI) senior operations specialist, Joanna Leigh said that the correct approach required talent management.

“There are many talented people available, but you must reconcile them to your business needs. Look internally to see if you already have people with potential, because recruitment can be costly and with many nuances to it. Once you have the right people, understand how to keep and motivate them, because it's not just about money. Young people want recognition and opportunities to develop their skills, so look at what will keep them in that job. The industry is only as strong as the weakest link so it's up to us to strengthen it. It's really exciting to chair this panel and hear about the different collaborations taking place both regionally and nationally to assist this.”

Find the right image The first question raised the topic of hot jobs and that the term ‘manual skills' doesn't present the right image for engineering. Do we have an image problem within aerospace and how can we improve it?

Neil McKay, chairman, North West Aerospace Alliance: “The manual operative description creates an impression that someone will be moving into a career where they will be standing behind a machine tool for the rest of their working life. We need to dispel this image immediately and sell our industry as a variety and depth of careers across a working lifespan of industry experience in different subsectors of activities. We have the means to progress young people into other areas that also suffer from skills shortages and provide careers of progression when we talk to schoolchildren and colleges.”

Paul Shakspeare, West of England Aerospace Forum: “It's important to start with those children entering secondary education and work through a community-based approach where industry is part of these communities. Show children the clean factories as opposed to the dirty ones. Leave it too late, and social views start to form, so it's important that teachers, parents and society work together. The industry must identify locations where we can invite young people to become interested in engineering.”

Andy Leather, director AeIGT programmes, A|D|S: “Our industry has much to celebrate, but we don't do it enough. We must make cultural changes to create the right image, but we need to celebrate success and not be scared of doing it. Equally, we must tolerate failure too. If you're involved in a development programme, at some point you will fail; it's part of the process. Let's celebrate success, tolerate failure and create a better image for the industry.”

John Whalley, CEO, Aerospace Wales Forum: “The Airbus factory at Broughton employs about 100 apprentices each year, so there is a bias towards the ‘manual' end. Airbus has many schoolchildren going through its facility in the [recruitment] build up and there are far more kids interested in pursuing these careers than places available. Airbus has something special; it's in the news and has a tremendous image which attracts people who see the potential, the investment and a long term prospect in entering this business. The trick is how we translate this into the smaller companies to make them more attractive.”

Dr Thurai Rahulan, honorary chairman, Association of Aerospace Universities (AAU): “My 17-18 year old Salford University aeronautical students have this image that mechanical engineering means dirty hands and oily rags, whereas aerospace engineering is about glass cockpits, helmet mounted displays and heat seeking missiles. Try and convince them that this isn't always the case and whether they would consider switching to a mechanical engineering course and they threaten to join another university! I don't know where this image comes from, but once they get it into their heads, it's difficult to remove it. Maybe the problem is unique to Salford, but we've never had difficulty in recruiting students into aerospace programmes.” A joined up approach The next question concerned the school curriculum and whether the panel thought it was too late to approach primary and secondary school children when engineering has to compete with ‘sexier' industries like web design, games software/hardware design and media studies. Is there an incentive for Government to provide funding to take this forward?

Leather: “It's never too late, but we need to do something fast. We need to work smarter because funding is available but we tend to waste it. Re-channelling funds - either at industry or Government level - will provide a greater good, but we have to be joined up and at times we're not as joined up as we could be. How many companies open their doors and actively encourage children to come in and walk around? It's very easy to point the finger and say it's Government or the curriculum, but industry needs to be more proactive. There are reasons like health and safety issues and companies being too busy, but if we're serious, we should invite schools to visit SMEs to discover more about what's happening.”

Whalley: “It's easier to get youngsters enthused by engineering where there are networks of aerospace related excitement, but it's difficult in areas of the UK that have no manufacturing hubs. What the North West is doing is trying to network the smaller companies with bigger ones to make them as exciting as the likes of Airbus and Boeing. Just fixing the school curriculum isn't going to work.”

Roger Bourne, Dept for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) was among the audience. He asked that the industry supports Government's new Manufacturing Insight initiative which aims to improve the image of UK's advanced manufacturing. This needs help and I suggest your companies take an interest and get involved,” he stated. “It may require funding from Government, but this is your industry. If you are going to rely entirely on Government to change the image for you then it won't happen – you need to do this yourself.”

He then gave the following example regarding the plight of an ‘after school' engineering club of Year 7 and 8 kids looking to set up some company visits: “They couldn't get companies interested, so I contacted a regional trade association: not one positive response was forthcoming. I then asked companies that I knew personally and got them three visits. If a school club interested in engineering cannot get a single company visit then there is something drastically wrong.”

Perhaps one final comment from the audience carried the most significance. It made the point that while David Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson provide huge inspiration to children for the sports industry, why can't our industry have a hero too - one like aerospace engineer RJ Mitchell - to inspire children and get them enthused about engineering?

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