An Assessment of Skill Needs in Engineering

Skills Dialogues were a new programme of skills assessments across major industrial and business sectors of the economy.

They brought together key partners from the National Training Organisations, industry, government, funding agencies and education and training bodies to produce high quality, authoritative reports of current and projected skill needs within 15 broad sectors.

The engineering dialogue report highlighted the continuing strong demand for engineering skills, especially in the fast growing electronics and telecommunications industries which led to a continuing, substantial need for training provision in engineering.

The report also showed that a significant number of engineering employers were experiencing recruitment difficulties and skill shortages were especially apparent among professional engineers and the skilled trades.