Engineering skills gap is not just a numbers game

8th March 2017
Posted By : Joe Bush
Engineering skills gap is not just a numbers game

Electronic Specifier Editor Joe Bush caught up with John Hawkins, Technical Director of Newbury Innovation, who shared some insightful views on the state of engineering education in the UK.

Newbury Innovation, a spin-off company of Newbury Electronics, was founded around four years ago to undertake engineering design projects. A former consultant hired by Newbury Electronics, Hawkins was asked by MD Phillip King to invest in this new business track.

In the last four years the company has worked on around 70 projects across a range of different markets with around £100,000 being invested in that time. Due to the growth the company has experienced (meaning it is actually on the cusp of breaking free as a separate business), it has swiftly required more engineering resources and as such, has taken a specific interest in the sort of engineer coming out of universities.

Due to the scarcity of good engineers it has meant that Hawkins has been interviewing almost continuously over the last few years. “In my experience, qualified engineers don’t tend to remain engineers,” he said. “Once they achieve their qualifications, most of them will move elsewhere.

They may go into engineering management, sales or even start their own business, but very few stay in engineering. Therefore, finding older engineers is difficult as most move on. And unless we as a country treat engineers better this will remain a problem.”

While this scenario presents a problem in its own right, it is exacerbated by what Hawkins perceives to be a broken university system, caused by far less ruthless and rigorous course standards compared to the old polytechnic degree Hawkins enrolled on himself in the 1980s – where around 50% of the intake failed to make it through the first year. As a consequence Hawkins believes that the students that are currently coming out of universities are, for the most part, ill-equipped to deal with real world engineering scenarios.

He added: “When I was a student computers simply weren’t powerful enough to run proper simulation programmes, so it forced you to understand the principals of electronic circuits, without which you wouldn’t have been able to get through the course. However, I’ve found examples of students going right through their course designing on a pick-and-mix basis using the latest software (which anyone could do theoretically) – where you can create circuits by picking certain parts and joining them together. However, you don’t learn anything that way.”

Hawkins’ fear is that this method doesn’t give the students the skills required for real world electronics design, where quite often a complex product can come off the production line and not work, meaning an engineer has to use their skills to find a solution. “A good engineer will have sound circuit theory drilled into them, so they understand how they work,” he added.

What’s changed?
Hawkins believes that the last 15-20 years has seen significant damage done to the university system, due to the change in structure. He continued: “Because degree courses are now paid for, the universities are not as selective as they used to be - leading to students being accepted onto degree courses who probably wouldn’t have been before - resulting in a lower standard. It’s a problem and it’s one that is glaringly apparent when I’m interviewing. Some students don’t understand the most basic things and in some cases are unemployable. For example, one of my tests is to give the applicant a basic LED circuit to write, which is pretty simple. You just need to know Ohm’s law to work it out – a one line calculation. However, most of them are completely lost.

“On a more social level, it’s vital that graduates are able to communicate - to be able to deal with problems on a factory floor and design environment. This requires maturity and for the student to be very articulate. Communication skills are required and I don’t think universities are doing enough to develop these. Even the best students come out of university with a fear of the phone.

“When I came out of my polytechnic, going into industry was, academically and technically, a bit like falling off a cliff. I was underwhelmed by what I saw – standards were lower and I was being asked to do things that were far more simple than what I was capable of. Now it’s completely the opposite. Universities are not preparing students for the cut and thrust of industry.”

Hawkins also stressed that industry itself has a part to play, and that part of the reason why many individuals tend to abort their career in engineering is a lack of a clear path compared to other professions. He added: “Engineering is extremely challenging and intellectual and in this country, if engineering is to grow, engineers have to be offered more.”

Far from sitting back and berating the situation, Hawkins and Newbury Innovation have established a working relationship with Bath University which has allowed the company to become integrated within the university courses and set up communication avenues with the students. The company has also incorporated practical elements into courses where the students can order their own boards from Newbury Electronics to assist with their training.

Hawkins stressed that it’s key for universities to play their part too. He commented: “The relationship between universities and industry has to be a two way process. In truth some universities are a bit conceited - believing that once they’ve trained some electronics engineers, companies will be falling over each other to recruit them. That’s very naïve. Yes, we as an industry have to offer enough and show that we can provide a challenging career, but there’s a burden on the universities as well.”

Lessons from abroad
Hawkins cited that a lot can be learned from the general attitude towards engineering in Germany, where being an engineer holds a certain amount of kudos compared to the UK, where there’s a culture among management to keep engineers away from other aspects of business, such as commerce and interaction with customers. “This creates companies with ‘an ivory tower’ of engineers where instructions are sent in and the product comes out,” Hawkins said. “That builds the wrong kind of engineer and it makes them bitter and frustrated, and proof of that is the high number of engineers in this country who leave their jobs to set-up their own companies.”

Unlike Germany there is a huge generalisation given to the title of engineer in the UK. You have your professional engineering disciplines but the term ‘engineer’ is applied very liberally over many different job roles.

Hawkins continued: “The work that we’re doing with Bath is a blueprint that all engineering companies should follow. Industry needs to get together and be more forthright about what it wants from its engineering students. Industry is very quick to say “I can’t get what I want”, but it needs to tell the universities, get involved with courses and look at the syllabuses. Influential industry people need to get together with influential academics. Which is exactly what we’ve done at Bath.”


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