‘We’re not generating enough digital skills’: Stephen Phipson, Make UK (Credit: Shutterstock) Large manufacturing employers are complaining that new recruits lack the skills needed for digital transformation, according to the head of a major trade organisation. The “dramatic” skills gap is the biggest challenge facing UK companies, said Make UK chief executive Stephen Phipson CBE at the Advanced Engineering event last Thursday (31 October), with 58,000 vacancies currently open in the manufacturing sector . An ageing workforce, drop in apprenticeship starts and a lack of access to European labour are all putting a “real squeeze” on vocational skills, Phipson told an audience at the NEC in Birmingham. Companies are investing in automation and digitisation to counter that squeeze with potentially “vast” increases in efficiency, he said to Professional Engineering. “The challenge with it is, when we’re talking about ‘What skills are we generating?’ the complaint I get is we’re not generating enough digital skills to help us with these transitions,” he said. “If you look at graduate programmes, for example, universities, another complaint I get from the larger companies… is: ‘They’re not fit for work when they come out. They haven’t got the right digital skills. We are way […]
K&X Design and Investment Technology, LLC
Invest The Invisible Impact
K&X Design and Investment Technology, LLC
Invest The Invisible Impact
