Celebrating Skills in Engineering and Manufacturing Matters Now More Than Ever

It’s been quite the year – and at Enginuity, we have been amazed at how manufacturing and engineering has weathered the storm. It makes us so proud of the sector that despite social distancing, lockdowns, college and business closures, furloughs, redundancies and all manner of other potential difficulties, there are so many employers who have been able to do the right thing on skills. With the pathway out of lockdown outlined by the government, now is the time to celebrate everything our sector has done to strengthen its skills base during the pandemic while looking to the future. The Enginuity Skills Awards – set to go ahead on March 18th, couldn’t be coming at a better time.

Our awards will be a great celebration of how engineering and manufacturing have rolled with the punches and adapted to the changes wrought by Covid-19. Changing ways of working (e.g. increased digitalisation), and the resulting shift in the skills employers need, explain why although 35% of businesses have reduced the size of their workforce in the last year, 25% have increased their numbers. There are thousands and thousands of employers out there who, whatever the challenges they face, are helping their people – from young apprentices to older workers with decades of experience – to take on the skills they will need for a rewarding future in engineering and manufacturing. It’s especially notable that nine in ten employers in the sector have retained all of their apprentices – which means that as we come out of the pandemic, they will be primed to look ahead to the future.

It’s a potentially very exciting future, one where engineers and manufacturers will be crucial. The world was already changing before the pandemic, and the Industrial Strategy pursued by the government (and set to be refreshed this year) outlines the big medium-to-long-term challenges that our society must overcome. These include the shift to green energy, keeping people mobile, and helping everyone to stay healthy – all problems that engineers are working hard at solving right now. Grand challenges need innovative solutions, and engineers are natural innovators.

Celebrating innovation is at the heart of everything Enginuity does. It’s why we’re called Enginuity (engineering + ingenuity), and it’s why this year we have four Enginuity Skills Awards which are explicitly focused on innovation. We’ve got awards for employers of different sizes, apprentices, graduates, and the great training providers who are skilling the next generation of engineers and manufacturers. We’ve recognised the importance in our sector of everyone pulling together to meet common skills challenges with a new skills collaboration award. Crucially, in a sector where the workforce is still heavily unrepresentative of the wider population, we’ll be presenting an award to those doing most to boost our diversity.

Sadly, this year we won’t all be under one roof to celebrate together – but that doesn’t mean we won’t be making a serious amount of noise when it comes to announcing our winners on the 18th of March. After a year with Covid-19, with the vaccine programme being rolled out at lightning speed and the end (fingers crossed!) finally in sight, we really hope the Enginuity Skills Awards gives our sector renewed hope and optimism for the future.

So, as Enginuity Skills Awards host Steph McGovern – who was herself an award-winning engineering apprentice – says:

“My engineering apprenticeship was the perfect start to my career; in fact, I don’t think I would be where I am today without it. I think it’s fair to say that we could all use a bit of inspiration right now and that’s why I can’t wait to meet the Enginuity Skills Award  finalists  on the 18th  of March, especially the apprentices. We need them!”

Attend

Join us and register to attend our virtual award ceremony as an attendee. If you’re a sponsor, sponsor’s guests or finalists and have not yet registered to attend, please email us instead and a member of our team will be in touch.

Our Sponsors

Find out more about our esteemed sponsors.