Emerging from the recession
With continuing recovery in the construction industry comes difficulty in intermediate-level design engineers to replace those who have left the industry or simply not recruited. Dan Cullingham of Fusion People reflects on the problem.
Following on from conversations with my clients and a very interesting discussion that took place in the building services (M&E) and environmental engineering group on LinkedIn I am trying to get to the bottom of the quite specific skill shortage affecting the building-services market in the post-recession market place.
Many building-services design consultants are struggling to find intermediate-level design engineers (described as engineers with four to six years’ post-graduate experience) to join their design teams.
There are many reasons offered up for this problem. However, one of the easiest explanations is the effect that the recession had on the market.
When the recession really bit the construction market in 2009 design consultants were forced to make the difficult choice of cutting head count. At the time a large number of junior and intermediate level engineers were made redundant because they could not bring in work and were enjoying a proportionally high salary level following the boom years. Also, senior engineers were losing valuable business-development and project-delivery hours in training them and supervising their work.
During this period a lot of firms also cut down on their graduate recruitment schemes (only really starting again in 2011) thereby leaving a generation of engineering graduates unable to find work in their chosen industry of building services. This period between 2009 and 2011 correlates to the gap in the market we are facing now, as these are the graduates who would now have three to four years’ consultancy design experience and would begin to be classed as Intermediates.
Another big question is where all the recession-affected junior engineers are now?
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During the period 2006 to 2008 the demographics of junior engineers in the market was quite widespread — with a lot of eastern-European, Asian and Australian engineers enjoying the buoyant market conditions and good salaries that went with it. When the recession hit, a lot of these engineers were either made redundant or faced with a pay cut, leaving them with few options — either to go home or try and find work in other areas of the world where jobs were still available.
A lot of young British and Irish engineers were also faced with a similar dilemma, and many of them emigrated to find work. As these engineers were generally under 30, a large number of them took the opportunity gain an easily accessible working-holiday visa and head over to Australia — which was experiencing a major skills shortage in conjunction with a major mining boom and desire for UK-trained engineers, leading to increased opportunities and salaries due to the tax breaks available for ex-pats. A lot of these engineers are now settled on the other side of the world, leaving a big gap in the market.
The remaining affected engineers have gone mainly in two directions.
Some have left the industry, unable to secure a new role following redundancy or graduation, so their education and valuable skills have been lost to the industry altogether.
A handful of junior engineers have gone the other way and really excelled. These were the engineers who shone as juniors, so their employers kept them on and they have progressed through the ranks on the basis that they had to sink or swim. I have come across a few very impressive engineers with only five to six years’ experience who are working at a senior/principal level; whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen.
The lack of junior engineers entering and establishing themselves in the UK building-services market is a worry for the long-term future of the industry, especially with the aging workforce. UK engineering expertise is still highly sought after throughout the world. However if the skill shortage continues then this may change and have dire effects for the industry.
Research I conducted in 2010 showed that 45% of the engineers in the market would reach retirement age in the next 20 years. If this exodus of expertise is not backfilled in this time frame, it could be disastrous.
The Government, industry bodies and companies in the building-services market all have a large responsibility to raise awareness of building services as a viable career and encourage more school leavers and graduates to take up building-services engineering as a profession. Fingers crossed that the skill shortage does not have too much of a negative impact on the long-term future of the industry.
Dan Cullingham is lead consultant with Fusion People.
