Friday, 8 July 2011

Strong demand for science, engineering and technology graduates

The CBI/EDI’s Education and Skills survey 2011, released last week, has found strong demand for employees to fill graduate jobs in science, engineering and technology (STEM) – so students in these areas can feel confident about their prospects. It found that 43% of employers surveyed were having difficulty recruiting graduates into these areas, while 53% expected to have difficulty doing so next year. Of those surveyed, 40 per cent of science and IT employers and 33% of construction employers reported that STEM graduates were likely to earn more than other graduates over the course of their careers.

These findings are in line with other positive reports on the science and technology sector, as featured on targetjobs.co.uk over the last few months, for example that the IT services sector has returned to growth, that manufacturing was the strongest-performing UK sector in the first quarter of 2011, that technology vacancies and salaries have risen overall and that the renewable energy sector is a good growth area.


Engineering - the longer-term view

The longer-term view is also positive, particularly for the engineering sector. The Engineering UK 2011 Report, published in December 2010, found that between March 2008 and March 2009 the total number of engineering enterprises in the UK rose by 12,575, to 482,880. In March 2009 these employed 4,566,316 people and had a turnover of £848.6 billion. These figures were despite the fact that the data was collected over the period that the UK was officially in recession. Their contribution to UK GDP also increased by 6.2% over this time period, to 19.6% of total GDP. This compares positively with the financial services sector, which, the report highlights, employs somewhere over 1,000,000 people and contributes around 7% of UK GDP. An analysis by location found that the number of engineering enterprises had increased in each UK region apart from Northern Ireland, where there was a fall of 1.9%. The area with the greatest percentage growth was London (6.8%), followed by Scotland (4.7%), the North East (3.9%).