UK’s science job boom to be hindered by skills gap?

By 2020, 1.5 million science, engineering and technology job opportunities will be created across the country, but the UK must educate another 450,000 technicians across all sectors to address a massive shortfall. A Gatsby Foundation funded project states the  1.5 million job opportunities will be created across the country by 2020 – nearly a third of which will be higher skilled technician roles needed by employers to compete on a global scale. However, a separate report from the Technician Council shows a shortfall of 450,000 technicians by the same year. UK Higher Education Institutions will lose, on average, between 25-35% of its highly skilled professional technicians in the next three to five years as many reach retirement age. The University of Sheffield has secured £400,000 from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to tackle this problem, pioneering career pathways for technicians and bringing new blood into the profession. The scheme – to be rolled out across all HE institutions in England – will aim to show being technician is a career for life, and run alongside a professional accreditation scheme for technicians provided by the Institute of Science and Technology. “There is a stigma surrounding what a professional technician is which many people think it’s a job rather than a career,” said Terry Croft, Director of Technical Development and Modernisation at the university. “We want to demonstrate that there is a clear career pathway and that if someone is flexible and agile in their thinking and embraces opportunities for training and development, they can have a career for life.” The scheme will enhance excellence and efficiency in the workforce by creating a national framework for progression and sharing best practice – at the moment each institution has its own structure, meaning gaps in training at both a basic and advanced level. The scheme will create a series of generic classifications for technical jobs aligned to a national grading structure; identify typical pathways and specialisation routes for technical staff; address gaps in technical staff training at the basic level by creating consistent training and assessment structures to be used at apprentice and graduate level; and train technical stall at advanced levels as senior staff retire. “There’s a need to formalise career pathways in the technical community so we have that framework in place to show that we have the quality and ability in this country,” said Croft.