Welding
Who’s next in line?
Skills shortages in engineering are set to impact the niche sector of rail welding harder than
most.Chris Eady, executive officer of the Institute of Rail Welding, believes succession planning requires cooperation and a focus on competence
F
or many rail travellers, engineering is simply viewed as the cause of delays to their journeys. Many would not even
be aware that rails are welded, let alone recognise the challenges faced by the sector in recruiting and developing the next generation of welders, welding technologists and welding engineers. However, the sector now faces significant challenges in filling crucial posts within the rail welding management, supervisory and delivery structure. Engineering UK recently published its
annual report on the engineering skills situation in the UK (www.engineeringuk. com). The Engineering UK 2013, state of engineering report provides excellent statistical analysis of education and employment in the engineering sector and highlights strategic actions that are necessary to address the existing and emerging challenges for individuals and employers. The rail industry is a significant employer of engineers and technicians for manufacture, construction, operation and maintenance of a diverse range of infrastructure, and
passenger transport and freight assets. Welding engineering is a relatively small but vitally important aspect of rail transportation and the challenges highlighted in the report are likely to impact the rail welding niche harder than other sectors of engineering. The demographic challenge facing
employers in the forthcoming years is set out in excellent detail in the Engineering UK report. The source of supply of technicians and graduates over the next 10 years is the 10-19 age-group, the numbers of which will experience significant decline between now and 2015. Within this vital cohort of potential technicians, technologists and engineers, the projected number of 18-year-olds will decrease annually from 2012 to 2020, from 772,500 to 688,700, with the exception of a slight increase in 2015. As a result, there will be fewer young people leaving school and available to enter Further and Higher Education or work. The anticipated rise in the 18 year-old population, after 2020, comes too late to offset the in-work demographics.
The most economically active age-
group, between 20 and 64, will experience a gradual decline. In 2012, the estimated proportion of 20 to 64-year-olds was 59.4 per cent, declining to 57.1 per cent by 2022, and to 54.5 per cent by 2035. We have to face the facts that a large proportion of personnel employed in welding trades and fulfilling welding technologist and welding engineer roles in industry today are over 55 years of age, and that some significant individuals in the rail welding sector are set to retire in the next few years with no succession plan in place.
Other industry sectors are turning to a ‘grow your own’ strategy to address the skills shortages and demographic challenges, using a combination of apprenticeships to draw in new talent, and upskilling existing employees to feed succession plans. The rail engineering sector faces two particular hurdles to following such a strategy. Firstly, as Tim Jessop, immediate past executive officer of the Institute of Rail Welding, has often said, you are unlikely to be accepted in the rail sector unless you were, ‘born in the cess and speak with
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