Scaling workforce capability and capacity at the point of crisis
Matthew Carr
BY MATTHEW CARR
“The challenge is not simply to scale capability and capacity for current and future demand.
It is also to address years of underinvestment in young people, mid-career professionals and the infrastructure itself.”
The UK’s ambition to enhance its energy infrastructure is clear.
The targets are visible; the policy direction is broadly understood and the investment case for a more cleaner and resilient energy system is the main guiding principle.
What remains less certain though is whether we can attain the workforce capability and capacity to turn that ambition into built assets at the speed and scale now required.
The uncomfortable truth is that our energy transition has become a construction, engineering, consenting and workforce challenge.
Grid reinforcement, offshore wind connections, substations, battery storage, electric vehicle charging and the transition of industrial power all compete for the same limited pool of people, resources, specialist contractors and public consent.
The risk is no longer simply that projects are underfunded; even funded projects struggle to move from concept through to physical delivery.
“The inherent gaps in relevant engineering capability and capacity have become wide open voids, which will take years to fill”
The challenge is not simply to scale capability and capacity for current and future demand.
It is also to address years of underinvestment in young people, mid-career professionals and the infrastructure itself.
The inherent gaps in relevant engineering capability and capacity have become wide open voids, which will take years to fill.
Like other infrastructure industries, a fundamental part of its capability is derived from knowledge in praxis.
Our workforce is also underpinned by those who are getting older and retiring.
With electricity demand in the UK expected to more than double by 2050, the critical occupations must increase by nearly 50% within skill levels 2 to 7.
With 25% of manual construction workers being over 55 years old, our ability to successfully devise succession plans has never been more acute.
And yet, with apprenticeship completions falling between 2017 to 2021 this area is now arguably compounding the issue even further.
This has shifted the narrative from being a traditional recruitment issue to a delivery risk that National Grid are acutely aware of.
National Grid is experiencing delays to infrastructure delivery with a contributing factor being capacity in specialist roles and increased project costs influenced in part by cross sector competition for the same pool of talent, which is driving up the price as supply heavily pivots towards demand.
“A graduate engineer, apprentice jointer or trainee project manager is essential to the future workforce, but cannot immediately replace a senior authorised person, principal designer or programme director, for instance”.
The skills challenge then is particularly difficult because many of the roles required depend on years of experience.
A graduate engineer, apprentice jointer or trainee project manager is essential to the future workforce, but cannot immediately replace a senior authorised person, principal designer or programme director, for instance.
Our industry therefore needs both short-term measures to retain, retrain and redeploy experienced people, and longer-term measures to address how we attract more future talent.
Those with many years of experience need to have capacity in their day job to deliver what’s ahead and mentor the young and mid-career people needed for the future.
What are the options?
Do we need to bolster existing pathways for ex-military personnel?
National Grid’s Military Transition Programme and the UK Ministry of Defence Career Transition Partnership are valuable outlets in providing onward careers for experienced safety critical personnel with transferrable skills.
There are, however, between 14,000-16,000 personnel leaving service every year which begs the question; are we making the energy sector an attractive long-term proposition for those with a background in engineering, logistics, communications and leadership?
“Should we be treating skills as strategic infrastructure?”
Should we be treating skills as strategic infrastructure?
If we did, we’d have an asset designed and built for its intended purpose being operated and maintained throughout its design life.
This isn’t treating people as commodities, but rather the skills needed to plan, design, build, operate and maintain the infrastructure.
What needs to happen for infrastructure employers, contractors, colleges, universities and government to provide an alignment of training capacity to project delivery pipelines. Apprenticeships and graduate schemes matter, but so do mid-career conversion routes for people from adjacent sectors such as rail, highways, defence, oil and gas, water and advanced manufacturing.
The workforce issues we all face are of course interesting challenges to solve, and they are solvable! With greater certainty of pipeline and the opportunities these will present for the supply chain, we can work together to develop and tailor our training and recruitment to nurture the staff who are vital to deliver this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Matthew Carr is Transmission and Distribution Director at Tony Gee and Partners.