Manufacturing firms warned over skills gap inaction
1 min read
UK manufacturing companies urgently need to work more closely with universities to address the shortfall in engineering skills, according to Carol Burke (pictured) who heads Unipart Manufacturing Group comprising several sites based in the Midlands.
Burke was commenting on the review of engineering skills by Professor John Perkins on behalf of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and published earlier this month.
The report sets out the importance of engineering skills to the UK economy. It states that these same skills are crucial to addressing global issues such as providing food, energy and clean water to an ever growing and ageing population.
"This is a vitally important report," said Burke. "It's essential that UK manufacturers have access to highly trained, highly motivated people with engineering skills. This may be seen as a long-term issue, but it needs to be addressed now."
In October Unipart and Coventry University announced plans to develop a new engineering and manufacturing institute on Unipart's manufacturing site in Coventry.
The £32 million project will see the creation of an international centre of engineering and manufacturing excellence, which will be the base for a sustained programme of innovative teaching and learning, product development and research activity.
Unipart is contributing £17.9 million towards the creation of the new facility with a further £5.6 million towards student scholarships and product research and development, and including support for the new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in manufacturing and the advanced engineering and management programmes that will emerge as a result of the initiative.
