Engineering Recruitment, Engineers Recruitment, Engineering Employment, Engineering Professionals, Engineering Jobs, WA, Australia

“It was advertised on giant billboards as 'Britain in the Sun', a land of endless opportunity – and for Australia's newly appointed Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, it proved to be just that,” writes Ellen Connolly in British newspaper, The Guardian. Julia Gillard's family were among those lured by the Australian government's '10 pound pom' scheme, which ran from 1945 to the early 1970s, to relocate Down Under for just ten pounds.

“Seduced by the 'bargain of the century' and the prospect of a tan all year round, about 1.6 million Britons keen to escape grey skies, post-war rationing and class-bound British society embarked on a month-long (one-way) journey by sea to the so-called promised land,” explains Connolly.

British skies are still grey but today the main driving force behind thousands of Britons leaving their home country for Australia seem to be economic uncertainty in the UK. According to the Daily Mail a recent survey conducted by foreign exchange broker, Currency UK, reveals that three in four Britons have considered moving abroad this year. Three in ten cited the poor economic state as their reason for wanting to emigrate while a quarter blamed the lack of job prospects and an eighth said a change in the pace of life was the main attraction.

The survey of 1,029 Britons found Australia was the most popular destination, with a third of those polled saying they had considered moving there. Senior Account Manager for Currency UK commented that many Brits were concerned by the prospect of a hung Parliament (which has since resulted in the formation of a coalition government) and that the next four years will be dominated by huge tax rises, cuts in public service and inflation. “People are concerned about the UK's economic strength and this is leading to Brits looking to get out,” he says.

According to a recent study from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), the UK is experiencing a brain drain because so many of its emigrants are highly educated and skilled professional people. However, British emigration has dropped by a third since the peak in 2006 when around 200,000 Brits were leaving every year, according to the report.

The said report, Global Brit: Making the Most of the British Diaspora, states there are an estimated 5.6 million Britons living abroad and while there are communities of more than 1,000 Britons in more than 100 countries around the globe, the big expat populations are in Australia (more than a million), Spain, the United States, Canada and France.

As the report cites Castles and Miller (2009): “The importance of migration in the modern world has famously led to the late 20th and early 21st centuries being dubbed the ‘Age of Migration’.”

A fantastic time for engineers in Oz
A newly released survey from Australian Industry Group/Deloitte CEO, shows skills shortages threatening to endanger Australia's economic expansion. “Of particular concern is that shortages are intensifying in occupations associated with manufacturing, construction and engineering, which are pivotal to the Australian economy,” says Heather Ridout, Australian Industry Group Chief Executive. “These occupations are based on skills which have a long development lead time, are in high use across the economy and whose absence puts industry at high risk.”

According to workingin-australia.com the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Western Australia predicts a shortage of 488,500 workers in WA across all sectors by 2020. The construction industry in WA will need an extra 130,000 workers while the mining sector will need to add an extra 69,000 workers – which increases the likelihood of a proportionate shortage of engineers. As such the CCI is calling for changes to the federal migration programme to allow more foreign workers into the country so local companies can recruit them more easily.

Migration Agent, Trueblue Migration, calls it a “fantastic time for engineers to live and work in Australia as the demand spans the country, with a mining and construction boom placing drain on local engineers.” Engineering jobs range from positions within capital cities such as Perth and Brisbane, to 'fly-in-fly-out' remote positions. According to them the key engineering disciplines in demand are chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, industrial, mechanical, manufacturing and mining.

A recent report by the Australian government confirms that the UK remains the largest provider of skilled migrants to the country, providing more than 23,000 workers in 2008 and 2009, writes Julia Pierce in theengineer.co.uk. Currently Australia is looking for engineering staff across several disciplines and has replaced the old Skilled Occupation List (SOL) with the newly introduced Critical Skills List (CSL) to help meet the needs of industry.

CSL occupations are in urgent demand and as such applicants with skills and qualifications in these specialisations will have their immigration applications processed as a priority. These include chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, mining and aircraft maintenance engineers as well as engineering technologists.

According to the article, David Wilden, Regional Director for Immigration, Europe, at the Australian High Commission in London, says that “engineers who work in a broad range of fields are in strong demand due to a heavy and increasing emphasis within the Australian economy on resource and infrastructure development”.

Pierce notes that in such a vast territory as Australia, the availability of particular engineering positions differs between states. South Australia, for example, is currently mounting a recruitment programme for engineers in the chemical, civil electrical, electronics, mechanical, mining, production or plant, aircraft maintenance, petroleum, aeronautical, biomedical and industrial spheres.

Wilden points out that “British skilled migrants have a long history of successfully integrating into Australian society. Part of this successful history could be explained by shared values, language and a common history between Australia and the UK.”

Then there's also the fact that for engineers, translating British qualifications to Australia is no problem. Australia and the UK are both signatory countries on the Sydney Accord, (represented by Engineers Australia and Engineering Council UK respectively) as well as the “Washington Accord”. The Sydney Accord provides joint recognition of academic programmes accredited at Engineering Technologists level while the Washington Accord affords joint recognition of academic programmes at Professional Engineer level.

Engineering UK's annual report on the state of UK Engineering (2009/2010) hails the engineering and manufacturing sectors as the key economic and social drivers for the UK. They contribute £799 billion to the economy and based on Engineering UK’s definition of the engineering sector, VAT-registered engineering enterprises had a total turnover in 2008, of £799 billion: an increase of 11.6% on the previous year, making the UK a strong candidate for engineering recruits. However, the fact cannot be ignored that all this can, and does, also make the recruitment of good engineers from the UK more difficult as candidates have good career opportunities there. Employers in Australia need to provide a competitive alternative if they want to attract sought-after skills.

A fight over the same bone
Australia has the world's fifth most competitive economy, according to the recently released IMD 2010 World Competitive Yearbook and the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer confirms Australian and New Zealand cities as cost competitive destinations for global workers in the Asia Pacific region. This places Australian employers in an excellent position to recruit overseas candidates, but caution should be exercised.

“In the past couple of years, corporate assignments have become truly global, with expatriates and ‘global assignees’ being transferred across all parts of the world,” says Nathalie Constantin-Métral, a Senior Researcher at Mercer. “However, global mobility is still an expensive undertaking for companies, so selection of the right candidates and a real understanding of the costs involved in relocating staff to other countries are essential - especially in today’s economic environment.”

John Masters, Director of Australian-based Engineering Recruitment and HR Consulting company, JSM Appointments, agrees that there may be many underlying reasons why British migrants look to Australia as an option, but says that local demand in the UK for experienced engineers should not be underestimated, neither should the demand for their skills in other expat destinations such as Europe, South America, Canada, Africa and the Middle East. “Improvement to lifestyle makes up a significant portion of an engineer’s motive to move, but in our experience they are also swayed heavily by job satisfaction and opportunities offered by challenging work on ground breaking world class projects with cutting edge technology,” he says. The demand for British engineering skills at home and in other countries also adds a strong financial incentive to remain in the UK or go somewhere other than Australia.

Furthermore, engineers feature prominently on the UK’s shortage occupation list according to the April 2010 government-approved shortage occupation list for Tier 2 of the Points Based System, and Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in England, recognises in a recent report that “skills are a key part of our plan for economic recovery and, as such, an urgent challenge”.

An article on recruiter.co.uk reports that both in-house and external recruiters need to be flexible when it comes to the available talent in the relatively new recruitment sector of renewables. With engineers in particular in short supply and with energy companies actively seeking alternative forms of generating the UK’s power, hostilities in this particular war for talent are only set to increase, the article states.

“Australian employers cannot rely solely on the propensity for British migrants to seek new lives Down Under,” Masters explains. “Experienced engineering skills remain in short supply on a global basis. Add to this the risk and costs associated with placing any new migrant in a key vacancy and the importance of global engineering recruitment experience and industry insight to coordinate a targeted and effective campaign becomes very apparent.”

Masters adds that the need for programmes to attract and retain new engineers remains a prominent topic of discussion in the UK. The National Grid’s media statement of their report Engineering Our Future, has for example identified that:

• Research shows engineering is not on the radar of young people - parents and teachers have negative perceptions of engineering.
• Future skills shortage will have a damaging impact on the transition to a low carbon economy.

New National Grid initiatives have been launched to inspire young people to consider an engineering career and change current perceptions.

According to Engineering UK's 2009/2010 annual report The UK will need to recruit 587,000 new workers into manufacturing over the period 2007–2017. Overall, almost 47% of all employees in 2017 will be at associate professional level or higher, compared with just over 32% in 1987. At the same time changing demographics mean the number of 15–24-year-olds will drop by 8% over the next ten years, the report states.

When coupled with the fact, that by 2010, one million 16–24-year-olds will not be in education, employment or training – and that half of students getting seven GCSEs do not continue their studies – there is a clear duty for engineering employers, Government and the education sector to work together to enthuse, train and up skill the future UK workforce while ensuring that a broader pool of talent, particularly women, is also recruited into engineering and manufacturing.

“The report indicates on the one hand that actions by UK organisations and authorities to maintain an adequate future supply of suitably skilled people has the potential in the longer term to increase the pool of talent open to Australian firms,” Masters says. “On the other hand the UK is acutely aware of the threat of an engineering skills shortage – and any shorter term action they take to retain skills may frustrate attempts by Australian firms to recruit UK engineers.”

Compiled by Paula Beezhold, 21 July 2010

Australian Employers who are interested in extending their engineering recruitment to include access to talent pools in countries such as the UK please contact us online or phone our offices on (08) 9244 4170.

UK Engineers looking for opportunities in Australia can send their expressions of interest to JSM Appointments or view current engineering job listings on our web site.