One of the biggest challenges facing engineering employers isn’t finding engineers. It’s finding engineers with the right combination of skills.
Across industry, a combined mechanical and electrical skillset is increasingly valuable but notoriously difficult to recruit.
Employers can find themselves recruiting a mechanical engineering graduate and then investing significant time and resource developing their knowledge of electrical engineering, control systems and automation. Or doing the same in reverse.
That approach takes time, costs money and doesn’t always give businesses the breadth of expertise they need.
This is where I believe Degree Apprenticeships have an important role to play.
At Gower College Swansea, in partnership with Cardiff University, we offer the BEng Integrated Engineering Degree Apprenticeship the only programme of its kind in Wales.
The programme has been designed around the reality of modern engineering, bringing together mechanical, electrical, electronic and manufacturing engineering alongside practical, work-based experience.
For employers, this provides an opportunity to develop multidisciplinary engineering talent within their own organisation, rather than relying solely on an increasingly competitive graduate recruitment market.
And the timing is important.
Swansea and South West Wales are entering an exciting period of industrial and economic development. The Celtic Freeport, alongside growth in renewable energy, floating offshore wind, hydrogen, advanced manufacturing and automation, has the potential to create significant opportunities for the region.
But investment and infrastructure alone will not deliver that growth.
We need the people with the skills to make it happen.
The engineers working in these industries will increasingly need to understand how different systems and disciplines connect. The boundaries between mechanical, electrical, digital, manufacturing and control engineering are becoming less distinct.
Our responsibility as an education provider is therefore not simply to offer more qualifications.
It is to understand where industry is heading and develop specialist skills that will be difficult to recruit in the future.
Integrated Engineering is a good example of this approach.
Apprentices spend their first four years at Gower College Swansea before completing their final year at Cardiff University. They remain employed throughout, gaining a university-level education while applying their learning to real engineering challenges and building valuable professional experience.
That benefits everyone.
Employers develop the specialist talent they need. Learners earn while they learn and build their careers. And our region retains ambitious, highly skilled people.
For me, that final point is particularly important.
If Swansea and South West Wales are to maximise the opportunities presented by the green economy and developments such as the Celtic Freeport, we need to make sure that local people have access to the skills and pathways that will allow them to play a central role in that future.
The next generation of engineering talent is not simply something we need to recruit. It is something we need to develop.
That is why Degree Apprenticeships matter.
And that is why developing specialist, multidisciplinary skills will be so important to Swansea’s engineering future.
For employers interested in developing this talent within their organisation, or anyone considering a career in Integrated Engineering, contact he@gcs.ac.uk to find out more.