News & Views

Asked about her job, Demi Stacey replies simply. “I love welding,” says the 19-year-old. She is speaking during a break in her apprentice training at In-Comm, a business based at Aldridge in the West Midlands that is leading the way in efforts to equip the workforce of the future with vital technical skills.

A report by the government’s National Audit Office in July 2022 warned that the UK faced “a major challenge” in boosting skills, a factor it said was critical to economic wellbeing. It added: “There is a risk that, despite government’s greater activity and good intent, its approach may be no more successful than previous attempts to provide the country with the skills it needs.”

Gareth Jones, managing director of the family-owned In-Comm, is doing his best to ensure that such gloomy warnings are wrong. He favours what amounts to an evangelical approach, devoting considerable effort to working with schools and other institutions to talk about careers in industry and the type of training that his business can provide. “There is a special need to attract more young people so we can start to fill the [training] pipeline,” Jones says.

“The talent pool [in engineering and manufacturing] is much smaller than it used to be,” says Jones. “Employers continue to report they can’t find the technically qualified people they need. Change in technology and processes is also driving demand.”

As for linking up with young people and their influencers, Jones believes that building up relationships over a long period boosts the chances of success. One-off events – during which a student may become interested, only to run into difficulty arranging any follow-up – are not enough, he says. “We schedule repeat visits [to schools and other institutions] so that we provide a long-term connection.”

Through such contacts, In-Comm says in a typical year it has contacts with about 5,000 people of varying ages mainly in the area around Birmingham and Wolverhampton. As evidence that such efforts can pay off, Stacey says she learned about In-Comm after a company representative came to her school in Aldridge to talk about what it offered. “In-Comm seemed to provide the type of training and work experience I was looking for,” she recalls.

Stacey chose welding because she’d already gained some experience of it at school. At home, this know-how came in useful in her spare time. “I used to help my Dad repair bikes and cars,” she says. So far, her experience at In-Comm “has been great”.

Technical apprenticeships organised by In-Comm typically last about three years – a mix of theory and practical training, normally including time spent with an employer. In Stacey’s case, she works at Valen Fittings, a pipe manufacturer in Walsall that she hopes will provide the base for a sound start to a career.

Another In-Comm trainee at Aldridge is Amelia Masih, aged 17, who started a mechatronics technical apprenticeship at the company in September 2022. She is training while employed by Metsec, a metal forming business in Oldbury owned by Voestalpine, an Austrian steelmaker. “When I was growing up, I liked Lego,” says Masih. “I enjoyed doing things with my hands. I thought engineering would offer a secure career and offer a lot of opportunities.”

Matthew Griffiths, 19, is at In-Comm to do an apprenticeship while working at HCI Systems, a Shropshire based maker of vehicle wiring equipment. After A-levels, Griffiths thought about going to university, only to reject this option for a spell learning about electrical installations maintenance, at the same time earning a starting-level salary. “I decided university wasn’t for me,” Griffiths says. “I thought I’d be better off both by entering the workforce and learning a skill where there’s a lot of demand.”

By 2030, the government wants 200,000 more people in England to complete high-quality skills training every year, including 80,000 more in the lowest skilled areas. Achieving this would only partly reverse the annual fall of around 280,000 learners in the most disadvantaged 20 per cent of areas since 2015/16.

There is some evidence that efforts to increase technical skills training are starting to work. Engineering-related apprenticeship starts in 2021/22 increased at a greater rate than in other subject areas, seeing a rise of just under 25 per cent. Even so, starts in engineering-related subjects were at the last count 12 per cent lower than in 2016/17.

According to the industry group EngineeringUK, in the next few years the country needs “exponential growth” of apprenticeships in the engineering sector to meet its economic potential. “Technicians will be particularly vital in making the UK a leading economic power in low-carbon technology, and we must ensure that we have enough people skilled to fulfil these roles,” EngineeringUK says.

As for Jones, he says that people involved with technical skills need not only to work hard to address the challenges, but to be prepared to do this over a prolonged period. “Competence in this [manufacturing and engineering] sector is about combining knowledge and experience. It won’t happen overnight. This is a long-term issue – there is no quick fix.”