Roadmap for addressing engineering skills crisis

Engineers Australia has developed a new report that it describes as a roadmap to address Australia’s engineering skills shortage in the short, medium and long term.

Strengthening the Engineering Workforce identifies five factors influencing the profession’s supply of engineers and provides an inventory of tangible initiatives which could lessen current and future shortages.

Supply factors include primary and secondary school education, VET and university engineering education, workforce retention, skilled migrants, and demand forecasting. Accordingly, the initiatives recommended in the report target these different areas across the government, industry and education sectors.

“The long-term solution involves collaborative investment in young people and schools, industry-led development of early career graduates, a greater recognition of the value of women and migrant engineers, and community-wide awareness of the engineering profession,” says Engineers Australia CEO Romilly Madew.

Engineers Australia Chief Engineer Jane MacMaster says that addressing the engineering skills shortage should be considered a “national strategic imperative” given the rising job vacancy rates, looming emissions reduction targets, and the need for major infrastructure projects to fire Australia’s economic recovery.

“Our economy and communities are more reliant on the engineering profession than ever before,” says MacMaster, “and we need to ensure we have enough engineers to design solutions for society’s most complex problems.

“Without urgent action on the engineering skills shortage, we will see project costs and timelines blow out. And for critical endeavors such as the transition to net zero emissions and circular economies, we don’t have time to spare.”

The report is available at the Engineers Australia website.