Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/863631
18 | SEPTEMBER 2017 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk of training against industry agreed standards." However, British Water has surveyed its member companies twice on the subject of Brexit since the Leave vote in June last year, and the findings suggest that the picture of a worried supply chain may be overstated. In the first survey, conducted last August, 42% of respondents said they were optimistic about the implications of Brexit on the fortunes of their own company, compared to only 20% who said they were pessimistic. By the second survey in February, some of this positive feeling had dissipated, but nevertheless, 35% said they were optimistic against 12% pessimistic, with the remainder saying they were uncertain. On the wider skills challenge, there are also grounds for optimism, in that the industry shows signs of taking action. Ofwat has indicated that skills will feature "heavily" in the PR19 dra‹ framework, particularly in relation to operational resilience. The new UK Apprenticeship Levy is now live, with new water apprenticeship 'Trailblazer' routes built in; the first water apprenticeships under the new structure are now underway. Energy & Utility Skills recently announced a partnership with the Institute of Water to help push through collaborative progress on skills strategy, with the theme 'acting together now.' A concerted effort is certainly needed if the sector is to rise to these challenges. "Focus and collaboration is needed to protect our essential sector." By Nick ElliNs, Chief exeCutive of energy & utility SkillS The recently published Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership Workforce Renewal and Skills Strategy highlighted the challenge that exists over the next decade for our sector - protecting the quantity, quality and responsiveness to change, of its most critical resilience resource – its people. With Brexit on the horizon being one of many uncertainties causing hesitation in planning for even the largest organisations, one of the most practical indicators of any need to act is the available statistical evidence. Recent data published by Office for National Statistics indicates that the UK's labour market is arguably tighter than at any point since records began. Last March, the employment rate, or proportion of employed people aged 16 to 64, reached its highest level since comparable records began in 1971 – 74.8%. At the same time, the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since July 1975 – 4.6%. That combined effect applies the first constraint. With the employment rate so high, companies have no choice other than to compete aggressively for the talent that is working for their UK and overseas competitors. They do so, just as every other major part of the UK economy is very publicly declaring a shortage of talent and a rapidly rising age demographic. The Chartered Institute of Professional Development reveals that the majority of its HR professionals expect increases in competition for well qualified talent, difficulty recruiting senior/strategic or skilled/technical staff and report that the skills needed by their business are changing, with leadership, commercial awareness and digital skills the most valued. For those who believe that the market will provide, they may be right, but at a cost. Turning to the unemployed talent, less than one per cent (3,000) of the 514,000 Jobseekers' Allowance claimants in April 2017 were seeking employment in relevant occupations, which include the 13 job titles on the UK's Shortage Occupation List. Even at this level of analysis, and without seeking doom and gloom predictions, patterns are revealed that will end up in the board room, as the previous underlying business assumptions for securing precious human capital are forced to change. The Workforce Renewal & Skills Strategy predicts a gap of 221,000 workers by 2027. The lack of suitably skilled labour is reflected in the prevalence of sector vacancies that are proving hard-to-fill by employers. Receiving hundreds of responses per vacancy is no indication that the market will provide: the lack of applicants with the required skills, qualifications or experience (known as 'skills shortage vacancies') is already significant. Within the wider energy and utilities sector, 36% of all vacancies were skills shortage vacancies – the highest proportion of any sector. The national average is 23%. Technological advances, processes, partnership working and a deeper understanding of how laws and regulations are formulated and enacted will require new skill sets not previously seen in the industry. Water, as with the wider energy and utilities sector, has pre-existing workforce challenges that are exacerbated by statistical fact, changing needs and Brexit uncertainty. Ensuring resilience of the workforce is achievable through a concerted effort by policy makers, regulators, regulated business, delivery partners and the whole supply chain. We simply don't know the post-Brexit impact yet, but it is hard to dispute that the time to act together is now. The Skills Strategy sets out how the sector's leaders will act together to ensure sustainability and where policy makers and regulators need to play their part in ensuring resilience and a sector-wide approach. Focus and collaboration is required now from central and devolved Government, to protect one of the most essential sectors to the UK economy and society. The Talk: water industry skills • WHY CHOOSE WATER? Max Halford, Technical leadership Graduate at severn Trent: "i chose to work in the Uk water sector as, having completed a chemical engineering degree, i wanted to use my degree for something positive and providing water is one of the most important things to humanity's survival. The process of treating water and sewage is incredibly complex but provides an exciting issue to work on that helps to impact people's lives positively. The reality of the work has been a real eye opener, as being a regulated company we operate completely differently to the private sector. The engineering work is also quite far from the theoretical world taught at degree level."