Skills for Impact – An Industry Perspective Victor Chavez CBE Chief Executive 15 th April 2015 Thales UK
Key Topics 2 / The Thales Context UK STEM Context Sectoral perspectives: Defence and Tech Sector Thales Response to the Challenge Conclusions
3 / The Thales Context
How our customers see the world… 4 / 4 / 4 / 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
5 / in all the markets we serve… Dual markets civil / military Space Aerospace Security Ground Defence Transportation Trusted partner for a safer world
Worldwide operations… 6 / 67,000 employees in 56 countries Global reach, local expertise
and global leadership 7 / Payloads for Air Traffic Sonars Security for telecom Management interbank satellites transactions Rail signalling In-flight entertainment Military tactical systems and connectivity radiocommunications Avionics Surface radars Civil satellites € 14 billion in revenues
A strategy driven by innovation… 8 / 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 Albert Fert, scientific director of the CNRS/Thales Open research policy joint physics unit and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics . International network of research centres Cooperation with academic and government research institutes worldwide Focused product policy Shorter development cycles Risk reduction Inventing tomorrow ’ s products today
..and supported by a diverse skill set 9 / 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
10 / UK STEM Context
The state of engineering 2015 11 /
Supply of engineers 12 /
Perceptions of engineering – more to do 13 /
Perceptions of engineering - more to do 14 /
Widening participation 15 / 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 opportunity 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 .
Key Objectives for Collaborative action 16 / 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
17 / Sectoral Perspectives
UK Defence Industry 18 / 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
Defence Industry: Future Skills Requirements 19 / 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
Engineering Career Progression 20 / Managing UK Defence industry attracts Technical Director Expert talent because of the interesting technical challenge Engineering Professional The career path needs to be equal in opportunity between Technical Expert Path Managerial Path Middle Ground between the two ~5 Years Experience Without the right balance too many talented engineers feel compelled to take a management path further MSc/PhD reducing the pool of talent Graduates capable of delivering next generation advanced systems Apprentices
Defence Industry: Skilling for the Future 21 / 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: Future Engineering Requirements 22 / 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)
The tech sector environment 23 / The sector is in massive growth The number of companies in the tech industry (IT / Telecoms) has grown by 17% over 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 only 16% of the tech specialist workforce being female.
The University environment 24 / 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 outcomes from IT-related Higher Education.
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