BSRIA has launched a White Paper on Bridging the Skills Gap.

Written by Jeremy Towler, senior manager, Energy & Smart Technologies, BSRIA Worldwide Market Intelligence, in July, the paper asks the question ‘What does our industry need from Government to recruit new entrants, upskill the existing workforce and change the diversity of the workforce?’

It looks at how to incentivise, communicate, build skills, start young, promote diversity and the next steps and points out that the construction industry has resourcing and skills issues.

According to the white paper, the root causes include: too many in government who do not have an engineering background and so are disconnected from industry; schools not starting early enough to inform students about engineering; poor linkage between schools and further education through technical colleges and apprenticeships; and poor communication by the industry about what engineering is and the value it adds to the economy.

BSRIA chief executive, Julia Evans, said: “Schools need to be incentivised on the number of students they get into apprenticeships and technical colleges, and not just the number that they get into university. We also need to change the image of our industry.

“Government can help industry to communicate better to make engineering more interesting. We need to move the focus away from one of being a ‘construction industry’ to one focussed on ‘the built environment’. This will help to make it more attractive to young people who, for example, have grown up with software gaming and modelling.”

Ms Evans added: “We have had to go through many generations to get more female engineers on board and the status quo does not look set to change any time soon without some external impetus. Government needs to help industry to find ways to be more inclusive in all demographic aspects, to attract more diversity into our industry and to raise the status of engineers – if necessary, through some form of incentivisation.”

The paper was developed for BSRIA’s Diamond Group Forum 6/2015. The Diamond Group consists of a BSRIA network of senior executives.