To mark the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day, ECITB chief executive Andrew Hockey highlights the huge opportunities that exist for young people to forge a career in the engineering construction industry
Engineering construction is an industry that needs new talent.
The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s (ECITB) Labour Forecasting Tool shows around 40,000 extra workers will be needed by 2028 for major projects that underpin much of the UK’s critical infrastructure.
With this growing demand for skilled workers comes opportunities for young people to embark on careers that can make a real difference in an industry that will be critical to achieve net zero.
Engineering construction offers a variety of careers for young people
These opportunities exist in trades such as mechanical and electrical engineers, scaffolders, process engineers, project managers, pipefitters, welders, and instrument and control technicians to name but a few.
Careers await in a multitude of different sectors such as oil and gas, nuclear, renewables, hydrogen, carbon capture, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food processing, water and waste treatment.
As the employer-led skills body for the industry in Great Britain, training and developing new entrants to make the most of these opportunities is a key priority of our Leading Industry Learning Strategy. This is why half of our training grant budget is dedicated to this area.
Career pathways in engineering construction
The ECITB has developed a wide array of initiatives to help create a pipeline of new entrants and attract young people, such as school leavers, graduates and the unemployed, to careers in the industry.
These include a range of apprenticeships across engineering construction’s different trades where apprentices earn while they learn. Young people are employed by a company from day one and combine practical training with study.
The ECITB Scholarship Programme provides learners with a grounding in the industrial knowledge and skills that are in demand, helping to accelerate scholars into apprenticeships or other forms of employment.
Learners receive a weekly learner allowance and, on successful completion of the programme, they have industry-standard qualifications and relevant site passports, as well as invaluable on-site industry experience.
The ECITB also has a Graduate Development Grant to support the development of engineering graduates, which supports around 300 individuals each year with employers receiving £4,000 over two years for graduates to undertake training and development.
Our life-changing Work Ready Programme, meanwhile, offers learners aged 18 and over who are not currently in employment, education or training the opportunity to gain recognised industry skills and accredited qualifications.
The scheme, which runs across the UK, is a collaborative and co-funded partnership between colleges, training providers, employers, the ECITB and the Department of Work and Pensions that lasts up to 16 weeks.
The free programme involves full-time training and assessment, interspersed with work placements and site visits, and on successful completion leads to employment opportunities for young people in engineering construction.
Celebrating the importance of skills
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day to “celebrate the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship”.
In my first year as chief executive at the ECITB, I’ve met with hundreds of young people across the UK on our different programmes and seen first-hand the impact of equipping young people with skills for employment.
I was really energised, for example, by my recent trip to East Coast College in Lowestoft to witness the great journey our ECITB scholars have been on.
I’d met the same young people eight months earlier, shortly after they had started on the scholarship programme, and was wowed by the demonstrable change in terms of how they had all grown in confidence and developed in that time thanks to the programme.
Hearing how a number of them had already secured apprenticeships and roles in industry on the back of doing the scholarship shows the real impact of providing skills to young people
This has been a reoccurring theme in my first 12 months in the role as I’ve embarked on trips to all corners of the UK, from the Cannington National College for Nuclear campus at Bridgwater & Taunton College to North East Scotland College (NESCol) in Aberdeen.
It’s been eye-opening to spend so much time with young people as they gain the skills that will be so vital for the future of the industry.
