Skills Minister joins the Enterprise Forum and Semta to debate ‘Skills for the Future’

Each brought their valuable perspectives on the challenge of engineering skills for the UK’s future. Allan Cook CBE said in his opening remarks: "The distinction between a good company and a great company is its ability to recruit, train and motivate the best possible talent it can. With youth unemployment running at about 20% we have to be doing more to recruit and encourage the talent we need in engineering and advanced manufacturing.”

Apprenticeships were high on the agenda with Matthew Hancock MP identifying apprenticeships as one of the main topics and Allan Cook CBE saying: "If we could unlock SMEs to take on even one apprentice the difference would be enormous.”

The debate moved on to cover the difficulties of inspiring young people to take STEM subjects and recruiting young people with the right GCSEs and A levels.

 

Rachael Carr, BAE Apprentice of the Year, gave a heartfelt explanation of what her apprenticeship had meant to her, saying "I can’t rave about my apprenticeship pathway enough” and outlined her commitment to do all she can to encourage young people to consider apprenticeships.

Allan Cook CBE said: "We need young people like Rachael with the experience and passion to speak to young people about engineering. We have to encourage more apprentices to go into schools, so young people can experience how great engineering and advanced manufacturing is and make a fantastic career choice.”

The issue of diversity within the UK skills base was also raised, with Allan Cook saying "51% of the population are women and the UK does an awful job of suggesting to them that engineering is a fantastic career to choose. This has to change.” 

Siemens’ Juergen Maier raised the issue of poor quality careers advice when it comes to promotion of careers in the sector saying: "A question I ask our apprentices is how did they find out about this apprenticeship? They usually say they got very little careers advice. They should have been targeted much earlier with good careers advice and told that the vocational system is the way to go.”

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock MP agreed saying: "Getting careers advice right is critical. We need people and employers to engage with schools and ask what they can do to go in and promote STEM subjects. However the language of schools and employers is quite different and this is where government can provide a brokerage role, providing that link.”

The debate culminated with agreement on Allan Cook CBE’s point that: "We need a vision and consistency of purpose. Our purpose should be to eliminate the skills gap.”  

Juergen Maier pointed out Germany’s apprenticeship success results from a long-term strategy not undermined by regular change. During the Q&A session he explained: "The German apprenticeships system has changed only twice since 1946. In the UK there have been more than 40 significant changes to apprenticeships in the same period.”

Juergen concluded that though there is no short term fix: "Semta, industry, BIS and colleges are up for the challenge to sort out the system towards this end vision.”