Our Head of Products and Services, Katherine Watson was invited to give a keynote speech at the Next Gen Makers annual Engineering Skills Conference, held at Matthew Boulton College in Birmingham.

The day brought together professionals from across the STEM industry and education sector to network and learn how they can help to bridge the skills gap in UK engineering.

One of the most insightful sessions of the day was hearing from a panel of apprentices from organisations including Williams Jet Tenders, Collins Aerospace, KUKA, PP Control and Automation, Sulzer and Teledyne. The panel discussed the generational divide (what makes Gen Z and Gen Alpha different), what encouraged them to apply for an engineering apprenticeship and some of the highlights of their apprenticeships so far.

The session emphasised the importance of support through mentorship and career progression. It was great to hear directly from young people to learn from their experiences and understand their motivations and drivers, to help us plan and recruit for the future.

Katherine’s talk focused on ‘How and where to find diverse talent’ – sharing six key takeaways for attendees to implement into the work they’re doing. These were:

1. Challenge stereotypes in your outreach work. Bring along counter-stereotypical role models, focus on individual skillsets and utilise our My Skills My Life platform.
2. Highlight your commitment to diversity and inclusion. This could be by showcasing it on your website, putting it in your job adverts or dedicating posts to it on your social media channels.
3. Review your job descriptions. Ensure you update them regularly and that the criteria is genuinely essential. We suggest you remove time-based experience requirements and check the language is inclusive.
4. Seek out different places to advertise your roles. You can use our specialised jobs board, make use of internal staff networks, engage with universities and professional bodies. Most importantly allow plenty of time for advertisements.
5. Build more inclusivity into interview practices. Standardise your interviews to ensure it’s a fair process. Make sure you provide training, include diverse panels and think outside the box for assessment tasks.
6. Focus on retention and development. The number of women working in engineering and technology has dropped by 38,000 – from 16.5% of the 2022 workforce to 15.7% of the 2023 workforce.