Future Skills 2014

This is the sixth annual skills supplement produced by the Energy Institute, and I have had the pleasure of putting together each of them.

The supplement was developed to provide EI members with a collection of useful material to aid career progression, but its 2009-inception coincided with a time in which the economy had collapsed and jobs and skills were set to suffer. Headlines in 2009 and the subsequent years were awash with phrases like ‘sub-prime’, ‘bankruptcy’ and ‘double dip’. Of late, things look like they are starting to pick up again. Those troubling words are gradually being usurped by phrases such as ‘spending’, ‘recovery’ and ‘growth’.

Mirroring this, the supplement itself has grown over the last six years and, along with current thinking on skills and careers, it now offers a greater insight into the widening set of services the EI is offering in this arena (see pages 16 onwards).

This year, Paul Golby CBE FEI sets the tone on page 3; we find out about priorities for engineering skills (page 6); apprenticeships (page 11); academic learning in energy (page 21); and we speak to a recent graduate working in the energy industry on page 22. 

Despite recent positive signs regarding the wider economy, concerns about future skills

shortages in the energy sector persist. A salary and benefits survey from Hays and the EI, outlined on page 4, shows that future skills shortages continue to worry the majority of employers.

So, as an industry we need to think about how best to address this, as the EI is doing. It’s also good to see skills shortages as one of the key areas that young professionals are thinking about themselves (page 8), and pages 14 and 15 offer details on institutions offering courses to help mitigate this skills gap, all of which have met the EI’s standards for accreditation.

The next key step is to get young people enthused about a career in energy and continuing with their science and maths studies. Giving them a copy of this supplement could be one way to start.