The future looks bright with industry leaders investing in our young people

I attended our Future Industry Leaders Awards recently and what an impressive event it was. We had contenders from around the UK for best Year in Industry contribution to the business, and also for best Engineering Education Scheme team. The standard was amazingly high, and the winners very much deserved. As it turned out both the winning EES team and the YINI individual winners were girls, which again reinforced in a small way the comments in my previous blog and the statistics referred to by WISE showing some welcome progress in getting more girls pursuing STEM careers.

The other feature of the evening was that a number of the participating students and the alumni invited back had undertaken multiple work related experiences before going on to university. This fits with increasing evidence that multiple employer engagements during secondary schooling is required to significantly impact and influence the career choices of young people; and preferably covering several sectors. We find time and again that young people gain awareness of local jobs and careers, and develop the sort of “employability” skills not easily acquired through school, when participating in activities with local employers such as work experience, placements, visits, mentored projects.

Both industry and government have recognised the need to tackle the growing skills shortage particularly relating to STEM skills. The government has pledged to create an additional 3 million apprenticeships by 2020, which is a welcome step. If this is to result in the right level and quality of apprenticeships then it will be equally important to ensure that there is a talent pipeline of young people with the necessary skills and awareness feeding into the apprenticeship programme.

I am pleased to say that the Industrial Cadets initiative, inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales and supported by many key employers, is providing just the framework and structure to enable young people to find the necessary employer experiences throughout their secondary schooling. The more employers who join this initiative, the more young people will develop the skills and awareness about industry, and fill the talent pipeline so badly needed in the coming years.

We hope that this year’s participants and winners at the Future Industry Leaders Awards will be role models for many more young people.