THE VIEW ITS UK Jennie Martin


The Secretary General of ITS UK warns of a looming skills shortage in our industry, and has her ideas for a solution


G


reen shoots of recovery are appearing in the intelligent transport systems sector as


well as elsewhere in the UK economy, and very welcome they are. While we welcome the new contracts


and spending plans, and hope that budget holders have not forgotten how cost effective ITS solutions are, now is also the time to remember the big problem which plagued our sector before recession struck – the skills shortage. ITS employers are hiring again, as a glance at the Twitter feeds of the likes of Atkins and Mouchel bears out. Tere is no need for a crystal ball to predict that within a year or two, the shallowness of our talent pool will again be a topic of conversation, and Border Agency rules regarding visas for non-EU staff will be the subject of bitter complaint. With no particular organisation


or person to hold responsible for addressing this, we seem to driſt on, accepting an ageing domestic workforce and hoping to be able to get enough Asian and Far Eastern staff through visa hoops so we can continue to function. But this is just making do. We cannot rely on experts working


until 75 or on the economic and political situation in countries like India producing recruits wishing to work in the UK. It is now several decades since


young people in the UK flocked to work in any form of transport or indeed any other form of engineering. Fashion may sound like a frivolous word for this but that really is what it is: engineering is out, other things are in. But we can try to capitalise on careers which are “in”, such as social media and IT, because they are not incompatible with our sector. If somebody can be persuaded that


using social media to sell clothes is an interesting job, then we should be able to convince them that using social media to get people to make intelligent transport choices is just as interesting. Ditto in IT: if writing soſtware for


14


The green shoots of recovery could lead to a recruitment drive


commodity futures transactions is attractive to a young person, why would writing soſtware to manage traffic flow on a motorway not be? Tere is also our failure to recruit


from half of the available pool of young people. We know a diverse workforce and leadership makes an organisation more successful. Several studies link diversity at board level to strong company performance. So, where are the women who by now should be making up half of at least the under-40s in the ITS workforce? Tere is no point lamenting the


lack of women above 40 – their career decisions were made when going into transport, electronics or IT, would have required pioneering spirits to rival Polar explorers or astronauts. Some did, and are now senior ITS (UK) members, and plenty of respect to them. But from the 1990s onwards we as an industry really should have been doing better with gender-balanced recruitment. It seems to me that the economic


recovery should be our wake up call. We will soon need new recruits and nobody is going to deliver them to us on a plate. Talented, hard working, well-educated young people are a precious resource and we need to stake our claim to our share of them. We would not only help ourselves with the skills shortage, we would also improve the services we


smarthighways.net


 If writing


software for commodity futures transactions is attractive to a young person, why would writing software to manage traffic flow on a motorway not be?





provide. How can it be a good thing that our transport service is almost entirely designed and delivered by Anglo-Saxon men in the second halves of their working lives? Get on any city bus during the


morning school run hours and consider how well we serve mothers transporting a pushchair, several children and even more bags. Especially if a wheel chair user is also trying to get to work at the same time. So, who addresses this? We have


already taken some joint actions with the CIHT in the area of women transport professionals, and the IET is also active in these questions. Te industry associations and trade bodies are best placed to promote transport as a career choice and work for diversity within the transport workforce. All of us have limits on our resources


and we need to join up our efforts for best results. And ultimately, every time you, dear reader, tell a young person how much you enjoy your job and how much you contribute to society by doing it, you have made a valuable contribution yourself.





Jennie Martin is Secvretary General of ITS UK jmartin@its-uk.org.uk  its-uk.org.uk


Vol 2 No 1 smartHIGHWAYS


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