Electrification is a key issue in the fight against climate change, but providing the skills to bring about the electric revolution is a huge challenge. AceOn Group managing director Mark Thompson joined a panel of experts brought together by business magazine Insider to debate the issue. Here’s what he had to say.
“We need to be positive because there are solutions to skills issues: electrification is a huge opportunity for the UK economy and job creation. The government has realised that if we’re to have any automotive manufacturing capability, we need gigafactories and skilled people to work in them.
“Young people want to be in our industries. Almost all 15 and 16-year-olds are aware of climate change, and electrification lets them be part of the solution. Rather than getting depressed about the lack of skills, we need to get ourselves and our kit into schools and colleges because this is now seen as a sexy industry working for a good cause and giving great skills.
“The colleges are switching-on to all of this. I sit on the Faraday Challenge Advisory Group and we’re writing the criteria for the first battery manufacturing apprenticeship, which will be ready around April to roll-out to colleges for September.
“However, we do face immediate problems. Wage inflation is really difficult: we’re all fighting for the same people at semi-skilled levels, having to give pay rises just to keep people. It’s made more difficult through lifestyle changes and people working from home, when manufacturers with shop floors need people in.”
You can read more of the debate at https://www.insidermedia.com/roundtables/sparking-skills-in-the-electric-revolution
