Victor Chavez CBE Chief Executive 15 th April 2015 Thales UK Key - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Skills for Impact – An Industry Perspective

Victor Chavez CBE

Chief Executive Thales UK

15th April 2015

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Key Topics

 The Thales Context  UK STEM Context  Sectoral perspectives: Defence and Tech Sector  Thales Response to the Challenge  Conclusions

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The Thales Context

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How our customers see the world…

A complex world where the security of people and goods, infrastructure and nations depends on the ability of organisations to make the right decisions and act in a timely fashion to obtain the best outcomes

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in all the markets we serve…

Dual markets civil / military

Trusted partner for a safer world

Ground Transportation Security Space Defence Aerospace

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Worldwide operations…

Global reach, local expertise 67,000 employees in 56 countries

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and global leadership

€14 billion in revenues

Payloads for telecom satellites Air Traffic Management Sonars Security for interbank transactions Rail signalling systems In-flight entertainment and connectivity Military tactical radiocommunications Avionics Surface radars Civil satellites

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A strategy driven by innovation…

Long-term vision

 20% of revenues invested in R&D  Focus on key technical domains

 Complex systems  Hardware (sensor technologies)  Software  Algorithms and decision support

 Open research policy

 International network of research centres  Cooperation with academic and government

research institutes worldwide

 Focused product policy

 Shorter development cycles  Risk reduction

Albert Fert, scientific director of the CNRS/Thales joint physics unit and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Inventing tomorrow’s products today

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..and supported by a diverse skill set

Huge diversity of specialist engineering skills across Thales UK alone…

 Radar engineers  Laser physicists  Materials scientists  Acoustic engineers  Optics  Aerodynamicists  Cryptographers  Communications engineers  Even Rocket scientists……

Specialisms developed over decades

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UK STEM Context

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The state of engineering 2015

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Supply of engineers

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Perceptions of engineering – more to do

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Perceptions of engineering - more to do

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Widening participation

 The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair



UK’s largest youth STEM event, with 75,000+ visitors to the 2014 Fair at NEC, Birmingham



Over half the key 11-14 year-old age-group learnt a lot and two thirds of young attendees took the opportunity to speak to someone about careers



The Big Bang Near Me – gives young people and their teachers an opportunity to experience The Big Bang closer to home

 Tomorrow’s Engineers



Mission: That every child will understand the variety, excitement and

• pportunity presented by a career in engineering, with an equal number of girls

and boys aspiring to become an engineer, so that UK employers get the engineers they need.



Delivery: Through a national programme that gives every child between the ages of 11 and 14 at least one engineering experience with an employer to help them make the connection between school work and career possibilities.

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Key Objectives for Collaborative action

 Either a doubling of the number of engineering graduates or a 50%

increase in the number of engineering and technology and other related STEM and non-STEM graduates who are known to enter engineering occupations

 A doubling of the number of young people studying GCSE physics

as part of triple sciences

 A two-fold increase in the number of Advanced Apprenticeship

achievements

 Provision of careers inspiration for all 11-14 year olds  Support for teachers and careers advisors delivering careers

information

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Sectoral Perspectives

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

UK Defence Industry Annual Turnover £35bn



10% of UK Manufacturing



9000 companies involved (including SMEs)



UK Defence Employs ~300,000 people



~120,000 engineering skilled people (Level 3+)



Typically 10-15% of the defence engineering population are key specialists in particular domains



Normally it requires 10+ years of experience to develop these specialists



Of these specialists probably 10% represent the most knowledgeable and experienced sovereign skills



Typically 20+ years experience



Therefore ~1200 engineers are really key to the success of the industry



In some key skills areas this represents a small handful of individuals

UK Defence Industry

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

Ageing Demographic, limited Population



High proportion of the specialist and sovereign skills are over 55 years old



There is a lack of SQEP particularly in the 40-50 year old population



Defence key engineering roles normally require UK nationals



Recruitment



The industry needs to recruit circa >5000 engineers per year to address the gaps and shift skills even to maintain the same level of contribution to the UK GDP



Unless we increase the number of STEM graduates by 50% in the next 10 years we will have a significant skills gap

Defence Industry: Future Skills Requirements

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UK Defence industry attracts talent because of the interesting technical challenge

 The career path needs to be

equal in opportunity between

 Technical Expert Path  Managerial Path  Middle Ground between the two

 Without the right balance too

many talented engineers feel compelled to take a management path further reducing the pool of talent capable of delivering next generation advanced systems

Engineering Career Progression

Graduates Apprentices MSc/PhD ~5 Years Experience Technical Expert Managing Director Engineering Professional

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

Learning through Experience



50+ generation gained experience on large defence contracts starting almost from clean sheets of paper



Passing on knowledge of key sovereign skills needs to be through structured mentoring and coaching of the next generation



Training



Defence systems are much more incremental now evolving from the previous version and often evolving through software upgrade rather than hardware



Systems and Software Architecting skills are critical to successful incremental solutions



DGP Initiative on Defence Systems Engineering Trailblazer MSc Level Apprenticeships launches in 2015 to accelerate the development of the next generation

Defence Industry: Skilling for the Future

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

Changing Technology Focus



Bespoke Processing Hardware -> COTS Hardware



Equipment -> Systems or Systems of Systems



Standalone -> Networked



Man-in the loop -> Autonomy



Signal Processing - > Big Data Analytics



Conventional Materials -> Nano-Materials/Smart Materials



Computers -> Quantum Computers



External Power -> Battery Power/Energy Harvesting



Many technologies are dual use enabling UK engineering to address both defence and commercial markets



Autonomy (Maritime, Air, Land)



DGP Initiative on Maritime Autonomy



Recent Government Announcement to invest £100m in driverless cars



Nano-Materials (Graphene, Carbon nano-tubes)

Defence Industry: Future Engineering Requirements

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The tech sector environment

The sector is in massive growth



The number of companies in the tech industry (IT / Telecoms) has grown by 17%

• ver the last 5 years (compared to +5% across the UK economy overall).



Tech industry employment has grown 17% over this period, and employment of tech specialists by 15%, compared to 5% for the economy overall.



In the last year alone, there was significant growth in occupations such IT project and programme managers (+10%); and software developers (+8%).



Employment of tech specialists will grow at an average of 2.6% p.a. over the coming decade, compared with 0.8% for UK employment as a whole.

And recruitment is problematic….



134,000 new recruits are needed into tech specialist roles a year.



42% of employers who are recruiting tech specialists find it difficult to fill those positions – 85% of them saying this is due to skills shortages.



The sector is missing out on half the talent pool, with

• nly 16% of the tech specialist workforce being female.

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The University environment



Circa 20,000 students qualify from IT-related HE courses a year (e.g computing, computer science, information systems).



46% of qualifiers take up tech specialist positions on leaving university (26% in the tech industry itself and 19% in other industries)



11.3% are unemployed 6 months after leaving (compared to 5.5% for all HE qualifiers)



13% are female (compared to 57% for all HE qualifiers)



They are more likely than any other subject to have low prior attainment, drop out and leave with pass degrees.

Both industry and academia are motivated to strengthen intake and

• utcomes from IT-related Higher Education.

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The role of the Tech Partnership

The Tech Partnership is a growing network of employers, collaborating to create the skills tor the digital economy. It acts for the good of all with the following objectives:

 Inspire new talent to pursue technology careers, with a particular focus on

females

 Create new jobs for people entering the workforce from school and

university

 Develop new skills for strategically important growth  Raise quality by setting standards and accrediting training and

development programmes that meets them

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Impact in Higher Education

The Tech Partnership accredits and promotes Tech Industry Gold degrees – courses designed and delivered in partnership with the tech sector.

 90+ employers are supporting 1,300 undergraduates in 21 universities  Employers define learning outcomes and accredit programmes that deliver

them.

 Degrees cover technical, business and interpersonal skills  Employers actively support delivery – talks, competitions, events, skills

clinics.

Tech Industry Gold degrees are delivering outstanding employment and academic outcomes:

 No known unemployment  75% 1sts / 2:1s (compared to 51% for all IT-related

HE courses)

 33% female (double the average for all IT-related

HE courses)

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Defining the course

Employers define the skills graduates need

 Experts from a wide variety of employers work together to:

• identify and agree the course outcomes
• determine the weighting of technical, business and interpersonal skills

Academics define the course to deliver them

 Academics create learning content which will deliver the results the

employers require and meet every learning outcome

Employers and academics ensure the course is up to date

 At least once every three years, employers,

supported by academics, review the course

• utcomes and ensure they remain current

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Endorsement and accreditation

 Rigorous and independent process to ensure the courses will

create graduates with the skills and knowledge industry requires.

 For each university / course

• An independent academic assessment ensures all learning
• utcomes are covered
• The employer group reviews and endorses approved

courses

 The Tech Partnership is a Professional Accreditation body and

accredits endorsed courses as Tech Industry Gold

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Employers supporting Tech Industry Gold degrees

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Universities delivering Tech Industry Gold degrees

Aston University Durham University Glasgow Caledonian University Lancaster University Loughborough University Northumbria University Oxford Brookes University Queen Mary University of London University College London (UCL) University of Chester University of Chichester University of Derby University of Exeter University of Greenwich University of Hertfordshire University of Manchester University of Sheffield University of South Wales University of Surrey University of West England (UWE) University of West London (UWL)

Plus Tech Industry Gold Degree Apprenticeship to launch September 2015:

• Pilot with 18 employers, 160 students, 7 universities
• Full honours degree delivered by university / employer

partnership

• Student is employed
• Tuition fees paid 2/3rds by government, 1/3 by

employer

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Thales Response

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So what are we doing about skills?

Recognised as a strategic issue ~ 7 years ago

 Detailed analysis of skills and demographics  Strengthened approach to career development for engineering

specialists

 Best practice Graduate Development Programme  Strategic approach to Apprentices  Active support for STEM outreach

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Graduate Development Programme Specialists and Experts Conference

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STEM Initiatives

Big Bang Fair Teach First

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• Thales welcomes overhaul of IS

curriculum

• But means there will be an

estimate of 50,000 teachers who have little or no practical experience of writing software

• Essential that industry and

industrial volunteers contribute though existing initiatives e.g. Code Club

Code Club is a nationwide network of free volunteer-led after-school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. We create projects for our volunteers to teach at after school coding clubs or at non-school venues such as libraries. The projects we make teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and

• websites. Our volunteers go to their

local club for an hour a week and teach

• ne project a week.

STEM Initiatives

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Conclusions

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Conclusions

Collaborative approach required to address ‘grass roots’ STEM capabilities

 Engaging school children, families and communities  Developing engineering skills through academic and vocational/apprentice schemes  Tackling the diversity challenge  Making STEM attractive and accessible to Millennials  Need to leverage ‘good will’ of all stakeholders: government, schools, academia and

industry

Sectoral challenges vary widely

 But despite different root causes still present the common challenge of shortages of

skilled STEM resources

 UK ‘Tech’ sector is larger than Oil & Gas or Aerospace – but revenue and skills growth in

recent years came almost entirely from the software, creative and social sectors

 Issue of sectoral attractiveness

So how to compete?

 Be able to match for cultural, career progression and lifestyle factors  Give a better opportunity to change the world - through engineering in medical, energy,

robotics & autonomy, cyber, industrial, national security, communications…

 Offer a varied and progressive career working across companies, sectors or disciplines

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Questions?