Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The looming skills shortage set to be caused by swathes of employees retiring over the next eight years is not going to be as severe as originally predicted, according to the boss of United Utilities (UU).
Speaking to Utility Week at the opening of a £1.5 million technical training centre in Bolton, UU chief executive Steve Mogford said that a large number of workers in their 50s, who are expected to retire in the coming years, will keep working for longer.
“The generation before would have pulled the ejection handle at 55 and banged out of there, but I think we will see less of that,” he said.
“Many people, for a variety of reasons will want to work for longer. They are fitter and the need the income.
“The dramatic cut off that people predicted a few years ago will not be as dramatic as expected.”
Across the utilities sector, it is predicted that an estimated 200,000 new employees will be required by 2023 to replace members of the current workforce who are expected to retire.
Employment minister Esther McVey, who visited the site and officially opened the Bolton centre, said that training schemes across the sector, are a reaction to the aging demographic of the workforce, and a previous lack of action.
She told Utility Week: “This wasn’t really looked at and it does take a long time for someone to come through school, college, university or an apprenticeship scheme, but a lot of work is going on here.”
The Bolton training centre, which will train up to 40 apprentices each year, fits into UU’s plan to recruit and train more than 1,000 new engineers and technical staff by 2023.
The purpose built centre, in the building of a former combined heat and power plant, has electrical and mechanical workshops, a laboratory, and a mock sever system.
Mogford added that the facility will allow UU to “in-source” its training and make it specific to the needs of the company.
He added: “We can do simulations and the benefit of training in an environment like this means when we respond to a real emergency it is more intuitive, more reactive, rather than having to think about it.”
Please login or Register to leave a comment.