Marine engineering roundtable debates skills gap
The event was one of the first to bring together representatives from the United Kingdom's naval and defence, commercial, leisure, shipping and offshore sectors. A key topic of debate was the first look at survey results polling 500 hiring authorities, which confirmed 93% believe they are working in a skill gap market.
The event and survey were co-ordinated by The Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) in partnership with leading engineering recruitment agency, Matchtech. Key survey talking points included:
Recruitment repercussions: 91% are concerned their business could be negatively impacted by recruitment troubles in the next 12 months
The lack of women in marine engineering: Over a third of marine engineers (36%) are working in companies with less than a 1% female workforce, while 84% of respondents have less than one in ten female employees in their organisation
The research and roundtable discussion confirmed that the skills shortage is a key unifying pressure across a traditionally fragmented industry. There are over 5,000 maritime engineering companies that employ nearly 90,000 people in UK. 89% of survey respondents recruited candidates last year, with 47% looking to increase job opportunities this year.
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