Panel discussion report: the future world of engineering

Meet the panel

Debbie Kempton - Engineering Director, BAE Systems plc
Dr Rhys Morgan- Director of Engineering and Education, Royal Academy of Engineering
Natalie Desty - Founder & Director, STEM returners
Katy Davies - Managing Director of CamdenBoss Limited
Chi Onwuhra - Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and  Shadow minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

From the accelerating march of technology to the impact of growing geopolitical instability; the push for net zero; and the challenges posed by the pandemic, the engineering landscape is changing fast. In late December 2022 The Engineer brought together a panel of experts from across industry to explore how individuals and organisations are evolving to address these challenges.  

Megatrends and shifting skills requirements

The session opened with a discussion around the specific trends that are reshaping the world of engineering and what this means in terms of skills requirements.

Looking at her own employer, BAE Engineering Director Debbie Kempton identified the drive for sustainability; the emergence of disruptive digital and automation technologies; the growing cybersecurity threat and the lingering impact of the pandemic as key trends that are driving radical change and new ways of working.  “We have to consider different things now,” she said, “and that means different skills, different training, and different tools incorporating different technologies.”

At heart, she said, all of these challenges - and the speed with which they evolve -  create a need to be more adaptable, both in terms of skills and the products and services that organisations offer. “Cyber security is a good example,” said Kempton. “That threat landscape changes really, really quickly, and we couldn’t go back and re-engineer the product every time something changes. That product has to be able to be able to adapt.”

Picking up on this increased need for adaptability, Katy Davies - Managing Director of SME manufacturer CamdenBoss - said that these disruptive trends are also shifting the skills requirements of smaller organisations like hers, which have traditionally been home to more siloed and highly specific sets of skills. “I’m looking for more traits and values around creativity and entrepreneurship. I want our design team to be curious about what the future is. I want them to be interested in what our customers are using our products for and - beyond that - the future of our customers industries.”

Alongside this, the whole panel identified a growing need - driven by the demands of all-encompassing trends such net zero - for engineers comfortable and adept at collaborating with experts from other sectors and disciplines. “As we go forward to address all these megatrends we can’t operate in isolation – we need to collaborate more,” said Kempton.

Dr Rhys Morgan- Director of Engineering and Education, Royal Academy of Engineering

Expanding on these assessments, Dr Rhys Morgan, director of Engineering and Education at the Royal Academy of Engineering, added that technological advances  - particularly in rapidly emerging areas such as AI and machine learning – are going to have a profound impact on how we train and upskill engineers in the years ahead. “There are without doubt some disruptive technologies that are changing the nature of engineering,” he said. “We’re still in the foothills of machine learning technology and that’s really going to fundamentally change the way we engineer products in the future.  We need to have a fundamental rethink about what it is to be an engineer in in the 21^st century - drawing on sustainability, ethics, inclusion, inclusive design, the end of engineering life – and really go into quite a lot of detail about the things we’re teaching apprentices, technicians and engineers.”

Attracting new skills

The current demand for skilled engineers across all sectors is well known. And with some of industry’s key skills requirements - particularly around digitalisation -  intersecting with those of other industries (e.g. financial services) it’s particularly challenging attracting new people to the sector. So what measures can companies take to give themselves the best chance of tapping into the existing talent pipeline?

For Debbie Kempton and BAE Systems it’s about ensuring that organisations are building an inclusive, welcoming workplace and really stressing everything’s that’s exciting about engineering. “If you are curious, if you like change, if you like to make a difference to peoples’ lives - these are the things that I think attract people to a career in engineering. That’s why I became an engineer – and I think we lose sight of that sometimes.”

RAE’s Dr Rhys Morgan added that alongside celebrating engineering and building an inclusive company culture, another really effective method of building an engaged and loyal workforce is to focus on apprenticeship and vocational learning opportunities, and work on building capability within the local workforce from a young age. “The investment in young people that these companies provide is paid back by those young people who are more likely to stay within the organisation,” he said.

Another potential solution is to recruit from the large pool of talented engineers who have left industry for a career break – or to pursue a career in a different sector – and are now looking to return.

According to Natalie Desty – director of STEM Returners  - there are currently thousands of potential returners with the skills and enthusiasm to make a big difference across a variety of sectors.

However, whilst STEM returners has enjoyed some success in addressing this challenge (so far helping around 350 individuals  return to industry) Desty warned that many more potential returners are being let down by standard recruitment channels, and that exceptional candidates are frequently taken out of the running at an early stage in the recruitment process because of perceptions that their skills are now out of date. “In reality, 96 per cent of our returners are retained,” she said.

Chi Onwuhra - Shadow minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

An additional benefit of engaging with STEM returners is that they tend to be quite a diverse group (46 per cent of Desty’s returners are female) and as all the panelists agreed, driving diversity in the workforce will be key to meeting the challenges ahead. “The most important factor here is driving diversity of thought, because that’s how you get really innovative solutions. Lots of different lenses. Lots of different eyes on different problems,” said Debbie Kempton.  

Meanwhile, Chi Onwuhra MP (shadow business minister and one of the few engineers in parliament) argued that government has a key role to play in helping to drive industry’s future workforce. “The biggest challenges facing our world….have engineering at their heart, and government has a role to play in making sure we have those skills in the right place….it should have a long term vision of what kind of society we want in the future and it can also put in place the incentives and infrastructure which enable that.” Onwuhra pointed to Gordon Brown’s recent devolution report, which recommends giving regions more of a say on skills strategy, as an example of the kind of policy assistance that could help.

Retaining and upskilling

Alongside the challenges of bringing new talent on board, it’s clearly also vital that organisations do everything they can to retain and upskill existing workers.

According to Debbie Kempton, this comes quite naturally to a broad organisation like BAE  where there are lots ofopportunities to move to different parts of the business. But alongside this , she said, the company is also actively developeing its further education opportunities. “People may come in on a technician apprenticeship and later on study for a degree. We try to look at the emerging trends and the skills we need, and then tailor the apprenticeships and further education and make sure we’re offering training and support and guidance.”

According to Katy Davies, this kind of activity is also vital at the SME level. She explained how the apprenticeship levy has been a really useful method of upskilling existing workers “it’s a great tool to have, to get the best out of our employers and make sure they’re supported to keep up with this changing world.”

Flexible and hybrid working

Interestingly, one factor that appears to be helping drive diversity is the pandemic-induced shift to a more flexible workplace.

“Engineering can be a traditional space and one of the biggest challenges we had at STEM Returners before COVID was around flexibility,” said Natalie Desty. “But that has completely changed….COVID has moved the industry on at least 10 years in terms of attitude and cultures.”

And with engineering organisations now having to do everything they can to attract and retain talent, Desty doesn’t expect to see a return to more traditional working practices. “Hybrid has to be here to stay,” she said. “Employees will vote with their feet if it isn’t an option and with regard to inclusion and flexibility it’s absolutely vital.”

Debbie Kempton - Engineering Director, BAE Systems plc

BAE’s Debbie Kempton agreed that - whilst levels of flexible remote working will inevitably vary from role to role - the workplace culture has changed for good in this regard. “I think it’s here to stay,” she said. “the way we look at it as a company is that you don’t come in for the sake of coming in, you come in because your role requires it, it’s the right thing for the project, or you as a team want to be together for a certain amount of time.”

Meanwhile, RAE’s Rhys Morgan cautioned that industry still has some work to do to ensure that some of the positives of the old way of working are not lost.  “The genie’s out of the bottle. We’re not going to be able to go back to a full-time office-based environment. And there are some things around that that are disadvantages, for instance those serendipitous water cooler moments. We’ve got to work out as industry leaders how to develop and nurture those opportunities.”