Aerospace skills set to receive a boost

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Manufacturing News, Source : TheManufacturer.com
Zone : People and Skills
Published : 06 Jul 2007 9:39

UK aerospace employers are being invited to participate in the greatest skills shake-up ever experienced by the sector.

Following the UK’s first Aerospace Skills Conference on 4th July 2007 in London, employers, especially SMEs in the supply chain, are being encouraged to accelerate the pace of performance improvement by sending ‘ the right people for the right training at the right time’.

Attended by more than 100 executives and senior managers and organised by SEMTA, the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies and SBAC, the UK's national trade association representing companies supplying civil air transport, aerospace defence, homeland security and space, the event was preceded by a meeting with the newly appointed Ministerial skills team of the Rt Hon John Denham and David Lammy.

During the ministerial meeting, the Aerospace industry made its case for the unique requirements of its employers, as well as sharing its concerns for the future.

Skills needs in the Aerospace sector are unique in that the term ‘basic skill’ in has a radically different meaning to that of other sectors, with 34 per cent of all employees in the sector holding a university degree or equivalent, forecast to increase to 40 per cent by 2010.

The need for adult apprenticeships and over 25s training is also greater in the sector.

In addition, many small and medium-sized Aerospace companies are confused by the vast range of disconnected publicly-funded skills training opportunities, on account of their enormous complexity, and there is an unfair disparity between funding regimes for different regions. There is also unequal flexibility in the different nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which results in a postcode lottery of funding winners and losers.

Current skills brokerage systems are also failing the sector, in that its practitioners lack the aerospace sector-specific knowledge, expertise and experience to provide a correct service to employers.

The newly-launched National Skills Academy for Manufacturing not only raised the issue that the quality of training providers’ products was too low for the Aerospace sector’s needs, with providers understandably chasing funding rather than meeting the true and correct needs of employers, but also that it needed to be bite-sized, accredited and just-in-time.

The conference also called for Higher Education to undertake more applied research in partnership with the industry.

The conference was the culmination of a four-year journey to map, analyse and project the skills needed by UK aerospace to continue as a leader in the global aerospace industry.

Led by SEMTA, who gathered together a diverse range of aerospace companies, trade federations, government, unions, professional bodies, qualification authorities, awarding bodies, education/training providers and others, the result was a joint Aerospace Sector Skills Agreement. The action plan from this agreement has become an essential reference point for the aerospace industry to turn its skills needs and ambitions into a reality.

As a result of the conference, a range of commitments were made: SBAC through its People Management Board will lead on eradicating the disconnection between all the work already underway in the regions for the sector and advancing it so that it is more joined-up.

SEMTA will lead on putting the Aerospace Sector Skills Agreement into action, nationally and in the regions, building on what is already in place.

The National Skills Academy for Manufacturing will lead on ensuring that providers deliver the correct level of accredited skills to the Aerospace sector and that their provision will be genuinely and fully accessible to all who need it.

The e-mail address, aeroskillsconference@sbac.co.uk, is being provided for employers to volunteer their involvement.

Philip Whiteman, chief executive, SEMTA, said: “Our Aerospace sector’s voice is loud, but not loud enough. The greater the number of small to medium-sized supply-chain companies whose voice is added, the better business’s case will be. We will do our best to ensure that the case for investment in UK Aerospace skills is heard and understood at all levels within Government, but we can only do that if we reach a critical mass of enough employers.”

Margaret Gildea, chairman of the conference and the SBAC’s People Management Board, said: “Having listened throughout the day, it was clear that we knew why we needed to act, what we needed to do and we saw some great best-practise examples of how we should do it. However, the most important questions that we really needed to answer were how everyone who wants to take part can help and who should take the lead. This event was a turning point in that those questions have now been answered, and we can roll up our sleeves and get on with the work in hand.”