An Interview with Hilary Leevers, CEO of EngineeringUK

Summary

In a recent episode of Zero In by Innovation Zero, Alistair Drennan interviews Hilary Leevers, CEO of Engineering UK, focusing on the critical importance of developing a skilled workforce for the low carbon transition and future green industries. Hilary emphasizes the necessity of green jobs, the skills required for these roles, and the current gaps in the workforce that hinder meeting the UK's Net Zero targets. The discussion covers strategies for enhancing education systems to cultivate these skills, increasing diversity in engineering, and aligning industry efforts to support green economy growth. The dialogue invites policymakers and industry leaders to collaborate, ensuring future workforce needs are strategically addressed.

Highlights

• The UK must educate and empower workers to ensure a critical labor supply for the green industries of the future. 🏗️
• Human capital is as crucial as financial capital in transitioning to low carbon and green industries. 💪
• There's a need for coherent workforce planning across engineering and technology. 🛠️
• Green jobs like heat pump installers and renewable energy engineers are key to sustainability. 🌀
• Education systems must adapt to swiftly incorporate new green technologies. 📘
• Diversity in STEM fields is lacking, with women significantly underrepresented in engineering roles. 👩‍🎓
• Industry can aid schools by providing STEM work experiences to foster interest among young students. 🏫

Key Takeaways

• Green jobs are crucial for decarbonization, requiring both traditional and new skills. 🌿
• Meeting workforce needs is essential to achieve the UK's Net Zero targets. Targets risk not being met without sufficient skilled workers. 🎯
• Government and industry must align efforts with coherent workforce planning to avoid skill shortages. 🤝
• Increasing diversity in STEM is vital for future workforce development. Encouraging more women and ethnic minorities is a focus. 👩‍🔬🌍
• Schools need more support from industry to enhance STEM education and career readiness. 📚
• Apprenticeships are declining, and a focus on vocational training is needed to ensure a skilled future workforce. 🎓
• Policy makers and industry leaders need to connect and take actionable steps towards achieving a green economy. 💼

Overview

The conversation spotlights the essential role that human capital plays alongside financial capital in achieving the UK's goals for a low-carbon economy. Hilary Leevers explains that without a deliberate strategy to cultivate the necessary skills and workforce needed for green industries, Net Zero targets may remain unfulfilled. UK is poised for a shift, but coherent planning and education adjustments are critical to this transformation.

Hilary brings attention to the types of skills necessary for emerging green jobs, which often blend traditional practices, such as welding, with new technologies like heat pumps. She stresses the importance of both upskilling the current workforce and educating new entrants into the field to meet these technical demands effectively. Leevers highlights the potential of teaching diverse skill sets that cater to roles in renewable energy and electrified transport systems.

To support these transformations, it’s highlighted that collaborations between government entities, educational institutions, and industry leaders are crucial. This includes advances in apprenticeships and the promotion of more inclusive practices within STEM fields to boost diversity and encourage wider participation. Policy and industry alignment, along with a focus on creating accessible pathways for education and training, are presented as key drivers to a successful green economy.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Importance of Human Capital in Green Economy The episode introduces the topic of human capital in the context of a green economy, featuring Dr. Hillary Le Lever, CEO of Engineering UK. The discussion focuses on the importance of education, empowerment, and upskilling of the workforce to meet the demands of a sustainable labor market.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Introduction of Hilary Leevers and EngineeringUK's Mission The chapter introduces Hilary Leevers and discusses EngineeringUK's mission to address the need for human capital in achieving the low carbon transition and developing future green industries. It highlights the focus on creating jobs and supporting the green economy.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Green Jobs and Required Skills The chapter provides an introduction to a speaker who is engaged in a conversation about the importance of having a diverse workforce in the engineering and technology sectors in the UK. The speaker has been with Engineering UK for five years and highlights the organization's new vision to ensure that the country possesses a diverse workforce. This diversity is seen as critical not only for the sectors themselves but also for promoting economic prosperity.
• 04:00 - 07:00: Challenges in Workforce Development for Green Industries The chapter discusses the critical role that workforce development plays in achieving sustainability and net-zero goals. It highlights the speaker's diverse background in education, skills, policy, research science, and engineering, emphasizing the multifaceted approach needed for workforce preparation. The conversation focuses on green jobs and the specific skills required for these roles, stressing the importance of understanding and planning for the workforce needs inherent in green industries.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Government and Policy Recommendations The chapter discusses the concept of green jobs and the skills required for these positions. It highlights examples such as jobs associated with the growth of wind farms, which play a significant role in the decarbonization of our energy system.
• 10:00 - 14:00: Importance of Education and Diversity in STEM The chapter discusses the evolving landscape of jobs and the integration of traditional skills with modern technology in the STEM sector. It highlights the importance of retraining and acquiring new skills, such as those needed for heat pump installation, to adapt to new technological advancements in the industry. The chapter emphasizes that while some jobs may rely on conventional skills, the demand for new technologies and the corresponding need for skilled workers is growing, stressing the importance of education and diversity in STEM fields.
• 14:00 - 17:00: Outreach and Industry Involvement in Education The chapter discusses the importance of upskilling and retraining individuals who are currently working with traditional technologies, such as boilers or vehicles, to incorporate new skills focused on decarbonization. It highlights the blend of traditional and modern skills required, especially in the context of electrifying transport and vehicles. The emphasis is on industry involvement in education to ensure the workforce is prepared for future demands, balancing old and new approaches to achieve greater sustainability.
• 17:00 - 21:00: Apprenticeships and Education System Recommendations The chapter discusses the importance of considering sustainability and decarbonization in all job sectors. It emphasizes the concept of a circular economy and the necessity for jobs to adapt by integrating sustainability into their skills and deliverables. The focus is on ensuring that all roles, regardless of sector, prioritize sustainable practices and outcomes.
• 21:00 - 24:00: Discussion on Innovation Zero Event The chapter delves into a dialogue on the challenges associated with the Innovation Zero event. It highlights the core issues perceived as lacking within the workforce, exploring findings from various reports shared over recent years. The discussion is set to provide a deep dive into these aspects, with supplementary materials available through linked reports.

An Interview with Hilary Leevers, CEO of EngineeringUK Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] welcome to this episode of zero in I'm alist drenan content director at Innovation zero today I'm with Dr Hillary Le lever chief executive of engineering UK to talk about the importance of educating empowering and upskilling the workforce to ensure that we have the critical labor supply for
• 00:30 - 01:00 low carbon transition and the green industries of the future we talk a lot about the financial Capital required to develop energy and transport infrastructure Net Zero buildings but human capital uh is a major piece of the puzzle that needs to be addressed so we're here today to talk about what's needed to deliver jobs and the green economy in turn um so welcome Hillary um could you just um start off by
• 01:00 - 01:30 introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about yourself of course hi and thanks ever so much for invied me to have this conversation with you I think it's really important um so I've been at engineering UK for five years our organization is to set itself a new vision which is about making sure that the UK has the diverse Workforce needed for engineering and Technology to thrive and that's in their own right but also to drive economic prosperity
• 01:30 - 02:00 improve sustainability and Achieve Net Zero and we realize how fundamental that Workforce is to that achievement and then my background um I come from an education and skills background um also worked in policy before then and before then I was a research scientist but my first job was in engineering great um so yeah as I said at the top of this we're going to be talking about um green jobs and what skills uh they require so could you just
• 02:00 - 02:30 start off by giving a few examples of what these green jobs are and what kind of skills that they're going to require so some of the green jobs are um green by virtue of the the the fundamental thing that they're delivering so if you think about the massive growth in Wind far Farms that is has already occurred and needs to continue to occur that is a really significant contributor to decarbonization of our Energy System and
• 02:30 - 03:00 is a core Queen job but some of the jobs on there may tap into traditional skills like welding for example so um you may be applying traditional skills in a new sector or you may be using new um need needing to learn about new technologies so for example heat pump installers that's a new piece of technology um and people will need to be retrained and we have large needs for people in that sector but but actually it looks like
• 03:00 - 03:30 it's it we should be able to achieve that by upskilling and retraining people who are dealing with traditional boilers as it were um or the um jobs for example to do with electrification of transport and vehicles um those again they will have a mix of traditional and new skills but really focused on decarbonization but we think it's kind of quite a nuanced things and we we sort of Hope
• 03:30 - 04:00 that there are no jobs now in our sector that aren't um thinking about how we can decarbonize as a whole so you're always thinking about the materials that you would be using the way in which you travel um the what happens at the end of a product and trying to build that circular economy so actually all jobs should be thinking about those needs and the extent to which they're specifically tailored towards it either in terms of the skills or what they're delivering um is a bit that will
• 04:00 - 04:30 vary and um we should probably dive kind of straight into um what you see as being the core challenge in terms of um what is really lacking um perhaps in the work in the workforce I I know you've uh delivered um a number of uh reports um over uh past couple of years which we will um link uh in in the description um but yeah in terms of
• 04:30 - 05:00 um in in terms of how we're developing the workforce to meet uh these green Industries and deliver these Green Solutions um how far short do you feel that we're that we're falling um and then uh a followup to that would be you know what do you see as being the implications of this um with us meeting our Net Zero targets and and and delivering a green economy going to start at the other end
• 05:00 - 05:30 so the implications if we don't meet our Workforce needs are simply that we will not be able to hit our targets and I think it is a genuine and very significant limited fact limiting factor that is often underestimated so when you know policy announcements are made they will often Focus about the the financial investment that is needed to deliver in a particular area um without really thinking about what those skills needs are let loone how we are going to bring
• 05:30 - 06:00 them online and you know what we have at the moment is a number of estimates across all of engineering technology which to a greater or lesser extent will relate to Green skills needs but we have you know hundreds of thousands that we know are coming down the P pipeline couple of its samples 100,000 expected an offshore Wind by 2030 27,000 now in onshore 2030 50,000 for heat pump Engineers these are really Lar large numbers they will be at all sorts of
• 06:00 - 06:30 different levels but without a really clear plan on how we're going to achieve those numbers we're not going to achieve any of our environmental sustainability targets let alone The Net Zero ones um and the limiting factors I think within the system really you that we don't have good Insight on what is needed as a whole so at the moment there are 12 or more task forces working across government looking at the needs of their
• 06:30 - 07:00 particular area but they're not really joining up and coming up with a coherent plan and when we look at their actions are often overlapping or the dependent on recruiting the same group of people so we need some really coherent workforce planning in order to make sure that we're going to get to meet the needs um that you I've conveyed and also an education system that is kind of poised to react to the those needs and ready and willing to do
• 07:00 - 07:30 so and at the moment most of that falls to the Fe um vocational and Technical Pathways into engineering and Technology um but the H system isn't quite as rapidly responsive to those Workforce needs I think that needs to be looked at and much clearer messaging into schools about what those Workforce needs are and actually if you're wanting to choose a secure career those jobs are going to be there they're well paid they're average
• 07:30 - 08:00 30% above median in this area um the the young people need to be primed to take the training opportunities that are there I mean just further to some of those um stats that you cited um I was reading um some of your reports you know 10,000 construction jobs per nuclear power plant um 70,000 heat pump installers by 2035 120,000 new EV jobs by 2040 and my
• 08:00 - 08:30 understanding is that at the moment there's very little forecast Clarity and data as to how those jobs are going to where where those jobs are going to come from um so what you've touched upon this already but so what are your specific recommendations for for governments and I don't want to say that nothing is happening so there's huge amount of activity and initiatives and there is a green jobs delivery Group which is trying to assess these needs but there also many other groups trying
• 08:30 - 09:00 to meet their own particular Workforce needs and what we need the first thing that we need is a much greater understanding of the numbers where we're using consistent definitions about um the the skills levels and also the areas of need bringing those together and then actually kind of backcasting those numbers through the system so you can see how many people you need coming up at different stages in order to get to the end end point that we need to
• 09:00 - 09:30 achieve and if you can do that coherently there isn't a risk that um everybody is kind of fighting over the same potential recruits into their area and at the moment um we we just don't have that coherence so the first thing is really high quality workforce planning across engineering technology and those critical areas for government and then that link back into the education system and to make sure that it's properly responsive and then we have specific recommendations in areas
• 09:30 - 10:00 like the need to invest in careers education at the moment that's very patchy across the UK we estimate we need about another 50 million per year to actually bring that up so that young people have consistent awareness of what jobs are available in those areas and and a really good understanding of contemporary engineering and Technology role their perceptions are often very outdated and stereotypical about what those roles are but also who can do them we then need to make sure that the Fe
• 10:00 - 10:30 routs in particular um are working really well and there's now this new qualification tea levels which is rolling out um there's a little bit of uncertainty because at the same time the government is Consulting on other post 16 options but the tea levels are definitely here to stay and will become a part of whatever else happens post 16 U but they're kind of still in a rolling out stage and they need real industry support actually for government to solicit and incentivize that support
• 10:30 - 11:00 from industry because each one comes with a 9 week placement and we estimate that we need 30 to 40,000 placements for young people per year in engineering technology digital design construction tea levels they're just at the level of a few thousand now and to try and build the capacity in the time frame that we need is so important but what you get at the end of a tea level is a young person who's actually really ready ready to enter employment at that point they've
• 11:00 - 11:30 got great employability skills if that's the right skill level for the employer or they can progress into further training including apprenticeships and um universities um and just diving a little further um into uh the education piece um obviously a really important bit that um engineering UK talks a lot about and I know is really important um to you as well is um the um the importance of
• 11:30 - 12:00 diversity um and and getting more um women into stem engineering and also um really focusing on the um ethnic disparity that there is with uh within stem and within engineering and these you know the these green Industries perhaps you could just talk to that a bit more yes um you know so we're concerned with all aspects of diversity and we work really hard to reach groups of young people who are under
• 12:00 - 12:30 represented in the engineering and Technology Workforce with our activities we have a range of initiatives we work with over 100,000 young people and we're really targeting that work to make sure we include those groups um and at the same time we work with many other organizations to support their efforts in that this area the reason why cares so much is the women in particular is still very underrepresented in the workforce the number has improved so when Now tracking at about 16 and a
• 12:30 - 13:00 half% of the engineering and Technology Workforce are women but that's compared to I think it's 47 and a half% in the overall Workforce that's a huge mismatch um there's also underrepresentation in other areas so it's more like 11 and 133% and 11 and 15% for people from UK minority ethnic backgrounds and people with special educational needs or disabilities is and then there's also a
• 13:00 - 13:30 few percentage under in terms of um socioeconomic class so or or you know just a level of income so there are under representations across the piece and when you look a bit deeper most of those groups are also not well represented in more senior levels but the greatest Under representation does continue to be women and we're doing a lot to try and work out how we can improve that situation um and and um something else that I read
• 13:30 - 14:00 um in one of your uh reports which I found uh really interesting was the importance of um Outreach and education so there was a line that I read that um those who make the link between engineering roles and environmental sustainability are seven times more likely to be interested in engineering careers which I thought was um really fascinating so um yeah um what what are
• 14:00 - 14:30 the some of the things that we can be um doing in schools um and also how are how are um industry and business getting involved or how should they be getting involved um you know we talk a lot about sort of government and policy but you know what can what can private Enterprises and and Industry be doing as well in this space yeah so you've cited one of my favorite statistics there I I know it and I talk about it a lot um and it does convey the importance of getting that
• 14:30 - 15:00 message in into schools and we're running a program at the moment called the climate schools program um which anyone's very welcome to come and talk to us about see how they can get involved which is exploring how we can embed some of those um messages into the curriculum and actually different subjects so not just science in geography and English and we'll explore others as well because at the moment engineering doesn't really have a presence in the schore curriculum particularly in the English School
• 15:00 - 15:30 curriculum and so you're dependent on the career system to really bring in engineering and technology and when young people are talk about climate change they tend to be talk about the causes of climate change and the impacts and they naturally you know in primary school have a lot of interest in the impacts on nature and they think a lot about recycling but they're not really being systematically told about the engineering and technological Solutions and adaptations to climate change and
• 15:30 - 16:00 again the huge Workforce needs that we have in those areas so you know when a young person is passionate about improving the environment they might be encouraged to study you know biological sciences and think about moving into conservation um I would argue that that at least needs to be balanced by messaging about oh gosh if you really need really want to make a difference well get into Green Tech and you know that that could hold some really really serious solutions to our needs um so
• 16:00 - 16:30 that Outreach and that messaging is really important I'm so sorry I know there was another half to the question what was what was the how can industry get involved yeah yeah so um schools actually can really do with support from industry in getting those messages across bringing those stories to life we always encourage role models to be going into schools particularly relatable rool um models for the community of young people that um they would be talking
• 16:30 - 17:00 with um and they could do that through a stem Ambassador scheme that's run with by STEM learning um an organization which she think does a great job with that um but there are many other ways of reaching out through careers fairs other workshops supporting with work experience young people want so much more stem work experience than is available to them so just thinking about how you could give those opportunities of a week here and there makes a real difference and then as I said before
• 17:00 - 17:30 that tea level offer is so needed by the education system and I just encourage anyone to just explore go and have a look the DFE websites are really clear about what tea levels entail and just start thinking about what um what they might be able to do maybe if you haven't done much with scores before start with a few other things and to dip your feet in the water as it were um before moving on to full L te levels and then appren ships which are also really
• 17:30 - 18:00 important yeah the the apprenticeships piece because you you just published a report just recently it was chaired by um Lord Knight and Lord Willets on on how to grow and sustain apprenticeships so um you know what were the key findings from that or you know what's the sort of key message that you that that came out of that report that you'd like people to to understand when it comes to apprenticeships yeah so we we've been quite concerned about apprenticeships so so friendship numbers have been declining overall but particularly in
• 18:00 - 18:30 engineering and Manufacturing and particularly for 16 and 17 year olds and that's the lower levels of apprenti ships and we really feel that young people should have those opportunities to enter the workforce and um not necessarily having to go through an H route which isn't always accessible for everyone so we're exploring different ways in which we could increase both yump people's interests in appren ships
• 18:30 - 19:00 and the supply of the offer which is which requires both industry interest and capacity within the further education system and we had a number of recommendations I do the first it's a five-point plan but the first recommendation is go and read the full report because there's a lot of detail and insight in there um but the first part of the plan is about rebalancing the education system and really thinking about what comes before an apprenticeship because we talk so much about parity of esteem and when we talk
• 19:00 - 19:30 to employers we we can see that they really believe in the value of those vocational and Technical Pathways but actually the education system really all of the messages prior to 16 are about academic success and you know you must get your good grades the school performance measures are very academically oriented and the idea that you can suddenly switch to saying oh and now it's just as good to go down a very different sort of pathway seems anomalous we think there's a lot more you can do to interest people in that
• 19:30 - 20:00 pathway pre6 and to change the way in which it's communicated about um and then there are some the second area is about supporting young people we know there are some barriers to their participation which may be about the um functional skills requirements um but it may be some really practical things that they're not in well-paid employment and they're not students so they don't have access to student discounts they have very expensive transport costs um if
• 20:00 - 20:30 their family receives child benefit they will lose that if they become an apprentice um so there was some just some tweaks in the system that would make it more accessible um and then we also wanted to look at how we can make sure that the 16 to 17 and lower levels were supported through the funding system it's about refocusing the funding to that area supporting businesses with their um ability to offer apprenticeships and we made some suggestions there particularly for smmes
• 20:30 - 21:00 which can find it quite hard to have more support around that um and just to help employers take action but also encouraging them to to to offer those places and also to look at whether they can support the training providers because we need to build capacity in that system as well and maybe there are ways that Industries could help with equipment or with training some of the training providers or even releasing releasing some of their staff to support with training
• 21:00 - 21:30 that's really really fascinating um so um yeah just to um look looking forward to um your participation at Innovation zero um so you're going to be uh talking uh in our uh energy Forum I'm talking all about uh scaling the energy transition where obviously you'll be touching upon uh a lot of these things so we have a couple of panelists talking obviously um from from the funding perspective and the new uh financing
• 21:30 - 22:00 models that are required to um scale Innovations and scale businesses sufficiently so that their Solutions reach Mass Market um but I'm really really pleased um that you'll be on this panel as well to talk exactly about this is why I was really really Keen to have you involved and obviously to to have this interview as well because it's such an important piece and I'm really really pleased that we've been able to to have this discussion and get this message um out there um so yeah to to everyone watching please do come to that come to
• 22:00 - 22:30 that that session um but one thing I the one thing that I wanted to to ask as my sort of closing question really um with with regards to Innovation zero is with everybody who's going to be coming to Innovation zero who do you really want to be meeting there and sort um what the kind of conversations that you want to be having um in order for your um for your messages
• 22:30 - 23:00 and for your outcomes to to you know to to Really turn into tangible realities who who who do you want to meet in order to sort of really make this happen what the sort of conversations that do you want uh yeah exact yeah who who do you want to meet great question yeah how can we sort of make that happen really number one I will talk to anyone please come and find me um I would really like to talk to policy makers about what we're seeing that gaps in that skills planning system and some of those
• 23:00 - 23:30 solutions that we're proposing we're really here to support a lot of the commitments that have been made or might be made by the next government but actually um to make sure that they can become a reality because at the moment we're not quite seeing that that that's a secure and sure thing and then industry anybody from industry who would like a bit of support with their thinking about how to engage with their future employees how to improve the
• 23:30 - 24:00 diversity of their intake um and if they wanted you know poters to we got a lot of stats about how those skills are changing what we anticipate as future Workforce um Trends to support their planning um but particularly if they're wanting to work with schools please come find us you can look at engineering UK online but we also run the tomorrow's Engineers code where we bring together over 300 organizations it's free to join and we we're a charity but we have some core funding that we put towards this
• 24:00 - 24:30 kind of greater good effort just to help any organization that is trying to excite young people about engineering and Technology careers we've got loads of advice and support and resources available to them wonderful well um thank you so much for taking the time to speak to to speak with me today um and we really look forward to seeing you uh Innovations Zia please do come to to Hillary session uh on the uh 30th of April in our energy Forum scaling the uh green energy
• 24:30 - 25:00 transition um and yeah can't wait to see you there thank you so much thanks Alister take [Music] care