£30 million fund to secure supply of engineers and boost number of women in sector
13 Jun 2014 10:24 AM
Matthew Hancock
yesterday (12 June 2014) announced a £30 million fund to increase the
supply of engineers.
Skills and Enterprise Minister
Matthew Hancock yesterday (12 June 2014) announced a £30 million fund to
increase the supply of engineers, to encourage more women into the sector and
to address engineering skills shortages in smaller companies. The fund will
enable engineering companies to establish training programmes to develop future
engineers and boost the number of women in the profession.
£10 million of the fund
will be directed to a call to ‘Developing Women Engineers’ and
£10 million to a call to ‘Improving Engineering Careers’. A
further £10 million will be made available in the autumn to develop
engineering skills in smaller companies. The calls have been developed in
consultation with professional institutions and leading engineering companies
from across the sector.
Speaking at the launch of the
Manufacture your Future initiative in the West Midlands, Skills and Enterprise
Minister Matthew Hancock said:
Skills are central to the UK
economy and our long-term competitiveness. In order to allow UK engineering to
grow and compete on the world stage we need a guaranteed supply of highly
skilled and talented engineers.
As highlighted in the Perkins
Review, the engineering sector is currently failing to draw on the whole talent
pool. By supporting employers to develop the workforce of the future and bring
more women into the engineering, we’re empowering the industry to unlock
its potential.
The announcement forms part of
the government’s Employer Ownership Fund that enables employers to design
training projects that can address skills shortages holding back their
business, providing 50% match funding to employers.
‘Developing Women
Engineers’ and ‘Improving Engineering Careers’ are the first
of a series of focused calls, centred on priority sectors that play a key role
in ensuring the UK’s global economic competitiveness. Prospective bidders
are encouraged to explore how they can support employees, particularly women,
looking to return to the sector and how individuals with relevant skills can be
helped to progress to become fully qualified engineers.
The calls come as a direct
response to recommendations made in Perkins Review of Engineering, published in
November 2013. Professor Perkins’ review of skills within the engineering
sector recommended the government invite employers to put forward innovative
proposals to develop engineering skills in sectors suffering acute skills
shortages.
The government is working
together with industry to address these critical issues and establish the
skills training that can guarantee a vibrant and prosperous UK engineering
sector. This follows a call to action announced in May 2014 supported by over
170 leading organisations across business, education and the third sector. The
call to action will create some 2,000 employment opportunities aimed at
increasing diversity and put in place a raft of measures geared towards
increasing take-up across science, technology, engineering and
maths.
Minister for Women Nicky Morgan
said:
I am pleased to announce that
the government is providing £10 million to help women progress as
engineers. We need to move away from the perception that engineering is a
‘man’s world’. Without women pursuing careers in engineering,
UK companies are missing out on a vast pool of talent.
The Employer Ownership Fund
empowers employers to work with government to solve skills challenges that
cannot be supported through mainstream funding. The fund is focused on
combating skills shortages in key strategic sectors such as engineering and
automotive due to the role they play in driving growth and the
government’s Industrial
Strategy.
Terry Scuoler chief executive of
EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation said:
The lack of engineering skills
in the UK has become a ticking time-bomb, and manufacturers are investing
heavily in their current and future workforces to prevent it from exploding.
This must include investing in all sections of our workforce, in particular
women where the UK has an especially poor record. What has been needed is extra
support to push companies to adopt more innovative solutions to truly tackle
the skills shortage and gender imbalance that exists in our
industry.
The fund announced today will do
just that and we will be encouraging manufacturers to get involved and take
this opportunity to tackle the skills challenge head-on.
Notes to
editors
- The fund call notice will be
placed on the publications pages of the
government website Gov.UK from 19 June 2014.
- The call notice will contain a
link to the Skills Funding Agency website, where employers can find more
information about the fund and complete an online application
form.
- The Employer Ownership Fund
(EOF) is part of the government’s reform of the vocational education
system and builds on the Employer Ownership Pilot (EOP).
- EOF is the main
co-investment vehicle to deliver targeted support for vocational education
outcomes in key sectors, which cannot be met through the mainstream skills
system. The fund opened in May 2014 with an automobile supply chain call. The
new calls being announced will focus on engineering skills.
- BIS has overall
responsibility for the fund, working with the Skills Funding Agency, who is
responsible for all operations of the fund – including communicating
decisions and issuing grant offer letters.
- The focus on engineering arises
from a recommendation in the Perkins Review of Engineering Skills. This also
follows a series of reports, including Royal Academy of Engineering Report
“Jobs and Growth”, which indicated “good econometric evidence
that the demand for graduate engineers exceeds supply and the demand is
pervasive across all sectors of the economy”.
- The fund is open to employers in
the targeted sectors. The announcement of individual funding calls and the
guidance documents will spell out exactly who is eligible to
apply.
- The government’s long-term
plan is to build a strong, more competitive economy and a fairer society.
Industrial
Strategy gives impetus to the plan for growth by providing businesses,
investors and the public with clarity about the long-term direction in which
the government wants the economy to travel.
The first achievements and future priorities of the industrial strategy
have been published and can be found herehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-strategy-early-succ
esses-and-future-priorities