Insight and policy

Skills manifesto

The Enginuity Skills Action Plan – A Manifesto for Change

As the charity whose mission is to address sector skills shortages, we’ve launched The Enginuity Skills Action Plan – A Manifesto for Change.

Pledge your support for our Manifesto for Change

Why does the sector need a Skills Action Plan?

What is currently happening in our engineering and manufacturing sector?

The success of UK engineering and manufacturing is critical to the country’s overall economic and social well-being. The sector currently employs 10.7m people and manufacturing alone contributes over £224bn GVA*, significantly boosting economic growth and social mobility both nationally and regionally.

Engineers and manufacturers will continue to make significant contributions in the future, but technology, digitisation, and robotics are causing rapid change in the sector, and will play an even bigger role in years to come. Given the opportunity, UK engineers can meet these challenges and change the world.

*Source: Make UK

What action do we need to take?

Our 5 top priorities:

We urge UK manufacturing employers and policymakers to pledge their support and help our industry meet the skills challenges of the future.

Pledge your support for our Manifesto for Change

Priority 1: Upskilling and Reskilling
Priority 2: Attract people to engineering and manufacturing
Priority 3: Flexible and responsive qualification and learning system
Priority 4: Robust and cohesive evidence base
Priority 5: Funding systems

The Enginuity Skills Action Plan in detail:

As a not-for-profit whose mission is to close the UK’s engineering and manufacturing skills gaps, Enginuity recognises the importance of upskilling the existing workforce and attracting new talent in order to meet the sector’s changing needs, but we also know that meaningful change isn’t going to come without focussed, collective effort on the part of engineering and manufacturing stakeholders. That’s why we’ve launched our Skills Action Plan – A Manifesto for Change. It is a strategy to help the industry build and maintain the skilled workforce it needs to meet the technological and operational challenges of the future. The plan recommends five key priorities:

Priority 1: Upskilling and Reskilling

Priority 2: Attracting people to engineering and manufacturing

Priority 3: Flexible and responsive qualification and learning systems

Priority 4: A robust and cohesive evidence base

Priority 5: Funding systems

"We must prepare our current workforce by upskilling and reskilling workers with modern skills, but we must also invest in attracting and retaining the workforce of the future to ensure a sustainable pipeline of new talent with the skills and desire to work in the sector.

We need policymakers across the four nations to help us make training and learning more flexible and accessible, invest in Further/Higher Education and ensure that employers have transparent funding."

Foreword from Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng

Chair at Enginuity

Download the Enginuity Skills Action Plan – A Manifesto for Change

This manifesto is clear on the challenges our engineering and manufacturing sector and related industries face to meet skills needs now and in the future.

If we decline to act on skills, then factors such as rapid technological change and increasing competition from overseas may make survival difficult and growth impossible. This manifesto is clear on the scale of the challenges, but also on the solutions: what we must do for ourselves and ask of policymakers.

Download The Enginuity Skills Action Plan

Image: The Enginuity Skills Action Plan for the Engineering and Manufacturing Sector – A Manifesto for Change.

Download the Enginuity Skills Action Plan – A Manifesto for Change

This manifesto is clear on the challenges our engineering and manufacturing sector and related industries face to meet skills needs now and in the future.

Download The Enginuity Skills Action Plan

Thanks to our supporters

Discover the companies that have pledged their support to help the engineering and manufacturing sector meet the skills challenges of the future.

Design & Technology Association

Make UK

The Green Edge

Automate UK

SDE Technology

Blackburn College

LAND 360

Skills Assessment Services Ltd

Pledge your support

We urge UK manufacturing employers and policymakers to pledge their support. Sign up and we will add your logo to our list of supporters on our website.

Pledge your support for our Manifesto for Change