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15 April 2011

Australia has always been a great engineering home but is it in danger of losing it because of a serious skills gap?

Australia is in danger of losing its "foothold" as an engineering education centre of excellence, according to Martin McCourt, global chief executive of Dyson. "You've got 6000 coming out of university and you actually need 20,000," he says. Last year Dyson’s founder, James Dyson was invited by Britain's Conservative Party to submit a white paper on how to address the country's chronic skills imbalance. Among the recommendations were education reforms and greater research and development tax relief for hi-tech companies, small businesses and start-ups. Mr McCourt said Australia was facing similar issues as in Britain.

"If you look at the percentage of graduates leaving universities in the UK or America clutching engineering, science, technology related degree, it's only in the order of 5%. Whereas if you go into somewhere like China, it's 25%." Engineers Australia acting chief executive Rupert Grayston says the seriousness of the engineering skills shortage will continue to grow due to increased demands in resource and other infrastructure projects right across the nation. The overall shortfall in the availability of engineering skills would be further compounded by the large numbers of engineering practitioners due to retire over the next decade.

Excerpt from: The Australian (www.theaustralian.com.au), 2 April 2011